


Triquetra

by gleefulmusings



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:42:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/gleefulmusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel's party unfolds differently from canon, bringing three disparate people together. Anti-Klaine and Anti-Raine. Lots of character bashing. A KuSS (Kurt/Sam/Santana) story. Heed the warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe story set during and after "Blame It on the Alcohol." This story is not for fans of Rachel, Mercedes, Finn, or Blaine. I bash them pretty heavily, though it's couched in the perspectives of other characters. If you feel this will bother or offend you, please don't read. I'm extrapolating events from Season Two, but not necessarily placing them in canonical order; others I'm completely altering, e.g. Sam and Quinn are still dating at the time of the party, Santana never got breast implants, Sam was part of New Directions from the beginning of the season, Sam and Santana were noticeably quiet regarding Kurt's atheism. Hate speech will be incorporated, though it's used to make a point.
> 
> Please remember that this is fiction. The perspectives on some characters do not necessarily reflect my own. Above all, this is an AU, so the characters will become more and more OOC as circumstances will change and they have different experiences. This is meant as fun and nothing more, even though it will sometimes deal with serious issues.

Santana Lopez was currently leaning against the wall, coolly observing the recent developments unfolding before her and all of the drama that would inevitably ensue, deciding that she didn't particularly care for them at all.

The fact that she had even accepted the invitation to pass a night in Berry's domicile suggested something deeply disturbing about herself: she had no life. This was unacceptable and would have to be remedied immediately.

It was bad enough that Brittany was happily mooning over Handicapable, but to watch Asian and Other Asian feed each other while cooing in their own respective languages was just revolting. And stupid. Especially since Mike didn't speak Korean and Tina had no knowledge of Chinese. Seriously, what was the point? Unless they were saying some seriously filthy words. Still, if they couldn't understand each other, that was just the epitome of cutesy obnoxiousness.

She wanted to stab them with chopsticks.

Smarmy Jew and Chunk'ums were sucking face like Kirk Douglas sucked on his oxygen tank, and it was all she could do not to vomit all over Berry's hideous carpeting. She frowned and looked down at said carpeting more carefully. She was pretty sure she had seen that pattern before on one of Berry's fugly sweaters. And people thought Brittany had brain damage?

The only thing more pathetic was the never-ending saga of Rachel, Finn, and Quinn. It had been disgusting having to watch Hot Tranny Mess and Kewpie Doll glare viciously at each other over the likes of Finn Hudson, who was more oblivious than Mr. Magoo. She had just wanted to stomp over and inform them that Finn's big-ass feet were not indicative of _anything_ , thank you, so they were bound to be disappointed. She shuddered as the word _mailman_ echoed in her head over and over again like a mantra. 

That had been thirty seconds of her life she'd never get back. And thirty seconds was being _very_ generous.

Damn, she was really going soft.

Suddenly, she wanted to file a personal injury suit against Hudson for pain and suffering.

But the worst – the absolute _worst_ – was to see two Hobbits in heat, getting their mack on and groping each other like meth addicts fighting for the last pipe. Not to mention that their technique was severely lacking. They might as well have been wearing t-shirts that read _I'm With Virgin!_ , with two arrows pointing at each other.

Spin the Bottle was all kinds of lame, but it had been mildly entertaining at first. Considering people in New Directions changed partners like most people changed their thongs, and that they cheated on each other left, right, and sideways, they were all surprisingly prudish, excepting herself and Puck. So she had decided to play along and show the little people how it was done.

It had all been going okay until Berry and Muppet McDapperhead started getting freaky. Not only did it look gross, but it was just really _wrong_. She could've cared less that Rachel was simultaneously trying to make Finn jealous while she planned out new duets for her and the Dalton Douchebag. She didn't give a shit about how upset Hudson was or the smug, victorious smirk on Quinn's face. 

She just…she felt really bad for Gay Kid.

She didn't know Hummel, not that well, despite their time together in glee club and with the Cheerios. She wasn't even sure if she liked him, and if she did, she'd never admit it. But she respected him, which she thought was more important.

She didn't know when, how, or why that had come about. One day she had looked up at him and decided that, even though he all but rode a prancing unicorn up and down the hallowed halls of McKinley High, he was a pretty decent person. He was a complete and utter bitch, which was seriously awesome, but he wasn't totally evil. He genuinely cared about his friends, specifically Jones, Asian, and Brittany.

Maybe that was what had done it. Gay Kid actually liked Brittany just as she was. He didn't try to change her or make excuses for her; he just accepted her and loved her and would shoot Karofsky with a harpoon if he ever made fun of her. He helped her with homework, but didn't do it for her. He helped her practice Cheerios routines, even though he was no longer on the squad. He took her shopping and bought her things that looked amazing on her. He explained things with endless patience when she asked him questions. She had called him in the middle of the night for an Emergency Tampon Run – and he had gone. That _mattered_.

And Brittany was all about Gay Kid. She talked more about him than she did her own damn boyfriend, a thought which made Santana tingly all over. She knew that if Brittany hadn't been currently licking Wheels' eyebrows, she'd go over and put the beatdown on Berry and Tickle Me Gay Elmo. Because if there was one thing Brittany got mental over, it was protecting her Dolphin.

Sometimes Santana wondered why she and Kurt weren't friends. They certainly had a lot in common. They were both gorgeous, rich, talented, vicious cunts who were superior to everyone else. And they both had that whole alternative lifestyle thing going on. 

Well, she was still debating about that, but whatever. 

So why shouldn't they be BFFs? 

True, he had Aretha, but what had she done for him lately? In fact, where the fuck was _she_ while all this emo shit was going down?

Her eyes scanned the room and she saw Mercedes inhaling a bowl of Frito Scoops and shook her head. She couldn't even say anything about it; the jokes wrote themselves. 

Finally her eyes landed on Kurt and – _wow_. Okay, she wasn't an emotional person. Really, she didn't give a shit about anyone's problems other than her own, and even those she dealt with only when they became mildly irritating, like a yeast infection. But Hummel's huge Disney Princess eyes were all sad and glistening and he was trying _so damn hard_ not to cry. 

It bothered her.

It bothered her because where the fuck were his so-called friends when he really needed them? Doing the same damn thing they were doing when Karofsky was harassing him: all caught up in all of the old-ass drama of their own making. Shit, she knew they were all teenagers, but how self-absorbed could someone be? Everyone always told her that she was the most selfish person in existence, so if even _she_ could see how badly Kurt was hurting, why the hell didn't anyone else? That was seriously jacked up.

Jones was stuffing her face, Brittany and Asian were all up in their men's grills, and Finn, Kurt's own damn brother, was making Sad Sack Eyes at Rachel while trying to feel up Quinn. God, they were all such assholes.

She thought of everything she knew about Gay Kid, which admittedly wasn't very much. There were the clothes, of course, but she could never hate on him for those. Despite the shit other people said about his wardrobe, the bottom line was that the bitch could _dress_ ; he knew fashion and he worked the hell out of it. No matter how many of his clothes were destroyed, it didn't dim his fabulosity. He looked damned good and knew it, and that was pretty cool. Those Hogwarts uniforms must have been a total boner-killer for him.

He was a good friend, always there for whoever needed him. Hell, she thought he'd even be there for her if she ever asked. He was just that type of guy. 

She'd overheard him tell Jones once that friends were the family one chooses for themselves. Well, if that was the case, he'd made some pretty poor choices. 

He'd had to leave his own damn school just so he wouldn't get fucking murdered, and all Aretha and Asian whined about was how much they'd been hurt when he left. The fuck? It wasn't about them! Why didn't they get that? And Berry had actually had the audacity to complain about numbers for Sectionals. The bitch had two gay fathers and wasn't more sympathetic?

Hell, weren't Berry and Gay Kid kind of friends now, ever since their Diva Duet? Oh no, she was too busy exploring her fellow Hobbit's uvula with her tongue.

Goddamn, that pissed her off. How the fuck did Berry not know that Kurt was into Bland? Fuck, all anyone had to do was _look_ at Hummel and it was completely obvious. What Berry was pulling was a total bitch move. She had thrown Hudson over, made out with Puck again, not to mention the shit with that dick St. James last year, and now she had to suck face with Other Gay Kid? What a slut. She had already taken god knows how many solos from Hummel, she had won Finn, and now she had to have the one guy who seemed interested in Gay Kid?

"Bitch," she seethed.

The truth was that Berry didn't know how to be a friend. Santana couldn't judge her for that, because the same was true of her, but at least she was honest about it. And Rachel had the stones to wonder why she had no one to turn to in her many, _many_ moments of crisis?

The heifer was probably just jealous of Kurt. No matter what she thought or what Schue said, everyone knew Kurt had the better voice, because his was unique. No one sounded like him. Berry was more commercial, and therefore more accessible, but it didn't mean she was more talented. What the fuck was so special about yet another Streisand wannabe? Streisand was still putting out number one hit records at the ripe old age of a hundred and fifty. Why did the world need another?

She curled a lip as she watched BlandBerry slobber over each other like they were Scooby Snacks. It was so foul. They couldn't even _kiss_ right. It looked downright painful, and Berry was sporting that Tortured Orgasm Face she donned when going for a high note. Gag.

Bland looked like a troll with a Jheri curl, had some seriously funky eyebrows, a Leno chin, and the dumb mofo didn't even have the courtesy of having a hot ass. She wasn't even sure he was good enough for _Berry_ , let alone Hummel. 

No, he _definitely_ wasn't good enough for Hummel.

Hummel had a hot ass. Hummel had ass for _days_. It was fucking _spectacular_. Hudson had the face, Puckerman had the guns, Other Asian had the abs, Wheels wasn't even worthy of her notice, and Hot Lips had almost the whole package, but none of them had an ass that would make the gods themselves bow the fuck down and weep. Hummel _did_. She just wanted to spank it.

Wayne did _not_ deserve to have access to an ass that epic. Shit, he'd have to climb a ladder just to reach it. What the hell was he bringing to the table other than a good voice, a dead bird, and texting the same word over and over again? Courage? Who the shit was he, then? The Cowardly Lion? Fuck his noise!

That was it. She had decided. Hummel's ass was going to phone in a resignation to Whine's fucked up eyebrows, something along the lines of _I quit this bitch_.

She nodded to herself, pleased that she had so easily solved this dilemma. All she had to do was inform Hummel that she was now in control of his life and all would be well. She should have realized this _ages_ ago. Later she would email him a list of potential gifts he could give her to thank her for her thoughtfulness.

Next would be ejecting from Hummel's life all the leeches who claimed to be his friends, and then allowing them to audition to reclaim their parts, though she was not above recasting them. 

Then they'd head down to Dayton next weekend and get him a quality homo. Maybe some college stud, if she could find one who wasn't a complete douche with a pink Polo shirt and a popped collar. That shit was so played.

She was so involved in her fantasy of getting Hummel laid while she filmed it that she completely missed Hot Lips sidling up to her.

"I just want to punch that asshole in his pug nose," he said.

She blinked owlishly and stared up at him. Holy shit! She had forgotten to make fun of Bland's nose! What the hell was wrong with her? She hadn't even touched the booze!

"I won't stop you," she finally said. "I personally want to give Berry a swirly in the boys' locker room."

Sam shuddered. That locker room was grody, but maybe Rachel deserved it. "How can they do this to Kurt? It's just…cruel."

Santana gave him a bored look. "Didn't know you cared."

Sam shrugged and looked away. "Kurt's a good guy. He's had to put up with a lot of crap. He shouldn't have to put up with this."

She thought about ridiculing his possible gayness, but couldn't be bothered. "You're right."

He sighed. "So should we start busting heads or should we be good friends and go talk to Kurt?"

"I'm not his friend. I'm not yours either."

He was silent for a long moment. "Aren't you lonely, Santana?" he whispered. "I am. I'm so damn tired of being surrounded by people who want something from me but don't really care about who I am or what I need. I'm so tired of being someone's punch line or last resort."

She averted her eyes and swallowed heavily. She now realized she should've started drinking a while ago, but definitely not enough to get introspective and beat her breast over how miserable her life was and how much of it was her own damn fault, which seemed to be what Hot Lips was suggesting. 

She missed Brittany so much there was a physical ache inside of her. Puck had thrown her over for a fat girl. Once Quinn had staged her coup and become head Cheerio again, the other girls on the squad were once again back to hating Santana Lopez openly. Sylvester had made it pretty clear that she was second-string and nothing more. And no matter how awesome her performances in Glee, Schuester continued to define the club around Berry and Hudson. 

So, yeah, she was pretty fucking lonely.

"I can't believe none of them are doing anything," she hissed. "They're supposed to be his friends."

Sam chuckled darkly. "Aren't we all supposed to be friends? I thought Finn was my friend, but it seems he doesn't have a problem putting the moves on my girlfriend. Isn't he still mad at Puck for doing the same to him? With the same girl?"

Santana snorted. "Don't feel bad, Evans. You can do a lot better than her. Everyone thinks she's just a sweet Christian girl, but she's the devil in sheep's clothing. She's as big a bitch as I am, but at least I'm honest about it; she hides behind her crucifix and angelic smile. She doesn't deserve you."

Sam was startled but somewhat warmed by her words. He was wary, of course. After all, she was Santana Lopez, but it was nice to have _someone_ tell him that Quinn's betrayal wasn't his fault, that maybe he didn't totally suck as a boyfriend. That he wasn't too fat. That he wasn't ugly. That he wasn't _stupid_.

"And Blaine sure as shit doesn't deserve Kurt," he viciously spat.

She gave him a hard look. "What about you, Evans? Do you deserve Hummel?"

He looked deeply into her eyes. "Probably not, but I wouldn't hurt him either."

Fair point, she silently conceded. "You switching teams?"

He shrugged. "Why can't I play for both? You do. I'm just taking a lesson from Quinn: always keep your options open."

She smirked. Who knew Hot Lips had bitch potential? How interesting.

"I can't stand to watch him watching them," he continued. "It just hurts, you know? Maybe it hits a little too close to home. You finally find someone you think will make you happy, that is just for you, only to realize you're nothing more than a seat-warmer until something better or more interesting comes along."

She flinched. Yeah, that totally sucked.

Then Rachel stood up, swaying, and announced she and Blaine were going to sing together.

"That's it," Santana said flatly. "We're out of here. Let's go get Kurt."

Sam raised a brow. "You're calling him Kurt now?"

"Shut the fuck up."

* * * * *

Kurt didn't protest as Santana and Sam ushered him up the stairs, into the living room, and sat him down on the couch. One look at him and Santana knew she would have to play this differently, would actually have to consider his feelings, no matter how closely those feelings might echo her own and how much that would hurt.

"Was that real?" Kurt asked in a dull monotone. "Did that happen, or did Puck spike the punch?" He frowned. "Wait, I didn't have any punch." He tilted his head. "Maybe I'm hallucinating." He nodded. "Yes, that's it. I'm hallucinating. I've hallucinated the past six months. Blaine isn't real, because the Blaine I hallucinated would never do that to me, not with her." 

He nodded more frantically. "It's all been a dream. There's no Blaine, no Dalton, no Warblers. Mercedes is still my best friend, I never left McKinley, and Karofsky never forced me to kiss him. He never groped me. He never stalked me. He never threatened to kill me. It was all just a dream, like that Buffy episode. Maybe we'll all break into song next." He frowned. "But we already do that."

Sam and Santana exchanged a horrified, anger-filled glance. Was _that_ what had happened? Was that why he had left McKinley? Because Karofsky had been sexually harassing him?

Kurt blinked and stared down at Santana, who was kneeling before him.

"Oh, hi, Santana," he said softly. "Why aren't you wearing your Cheerios uniform? It's weird not to see you in it. I liked my uniform. It almost felt like armor, you know? As long as I was wearing it, I felt safe. Protected. That no one would hurt me. Why does everyone hurt me?"

She opened her mouth in rebuttal but he cut her off.

"I guess I must deserve it. I know I'm not a nice person. I gossip too much. I hurt people's feelings when I make fun of their clothes. Maybe if I stopped making fun of Rachel's sweaters, she wouldn't make out with my boyfriend and I could have a solo?"

"Kurt," she interrupted.

He held a finger to her lips. "You should tell Brittany you love her. She loves you too, but she's afraid you'll never be only with her. She could make you happy, Santana. I want you to be happy. I've watched you for so long. I've seen how badly you hurt, how lonely you feel. You deserve more than that."

Her eyes widened comically before she furiously began blinking. "So do you."

He shook his head. "There's something wrong with me. I never wanted to believe it, but enough people have told me. Being gay is wrong. _I'm_ wrong. I never believed that before. I hated being gay in Lima, but I never hated being gay. But what has it gotten me? Ridicule, beatings, vandalism, death threats. I even hallucinated the perfect boy just so I could hide the fact that I'm completely worthless."

"That is _not_ true," Sam thundered. "You're worth more than any of them!"

Kurt blinked slowly and turned to his side. "Hello, Sam Evans." He frowned. "I didn't really ask you to sing with me, did I? Because Finn said that was wrong."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Why would that be wrong?"

"Because I'm gay and you're not," he answered simply. "People would talk. Finn said that I was a stalker and that I had sexually harassed him and that I didn't understand that no means no and he should have gotten a restraining order against me." He leaned over toward Sam. "That's probably why Karofsky is after me. I deserve it for having crushed on Finn. It's really my own fault," he confided.

Sam curled a lip as Santana swore softly under her breath.

Suddenly Kurt looked at Santana and his eyes filled with tears. "Finn called me a fag, and he was right. That's what I am. And he told me that if I sang with Sam, I could get him killed." He shook his head. "I don't want to get Sam killed. I like Sam. He's nice to me even when other people tell him not to be. I had hoped Sam might be gay, just so I wouldn't be alone anymore, but even when I found out he wasn't, that was okay. It was just nice to have a guy talk to me like I'm a normal person and not a freak."

"You're not a freak," Santana hissed.

"But I am. I make guys uncomfortable. That's why they hurt me so much, because I shouldn't be allowed near them. But Sam was nice. He didn't hurt me. But Finn said I would hurt him if I sang with him. My father told me I should leave Sam alone. I don't want Sam to quit Glee because I make him uncomfortable."

"You don't make me uncomfortable," Sam mumbled.

Tears started streaking down Kurt's face, and Santana paused to consider that even when crying, Kurt was still beautiful. How obnoxious.

"Even Mercedes told me I should leave Sam alone, that I shouldn't allow myself to crush on another straight boy. But that's not what it was about." Kurt sniffled. "I just wanted a friend."

He drew his knees up and hid his face as sobs began wracking his body.

Santana exhaled noisily. "I'm going to kill Hudson."

"Not if I get to him first," Sam barked, desperately trying not to cry himself. He should have demanded answers from Kurt months ago. All of this time he could have had a real _friend_ , one who was willing to sacrifice themselves for him, to protect him, to put him first. Instead, he had settled for a girl who had used him and didn't even have the courtesy to dump him before moving on to someone else. Instead, he had become friends with a homophobic bully who had no qualms about moving in on his girl. What a waste. Shit, he was so _stupid_.

Sam and Santana stared at each other for a long moment before turning to look at Kurt, who was still hiding from them and the world. They looked back at each other, their faces moving in small details – a raise of eyebrows, a flare of nostrils, a pursing of lips – and they nodded. 

They were in this now. Fuck the others. From now on, they were a trio. And no one was going to hurt them again.

Santana stood and grabbed Kurt's hands, pulling him to his feet. "Come on, Rainbow. I'm taking you home with me."

Kurt sniffled again and shook his head. "I have to give my hallucination a ride home."

Sam scowled. "Screw Blaine!"

"I never had that opportunity," Kurt said mournfully. "I probably wouldn't be very good at it anyway. I'm weird and awkward and I make people uncomfortable. He told me I'm not sexy."

Santana scoffed. "Well, he's a fucking idiot. What the hell does he know about sexy? He needs to go back to Fraggle Rock and run a hot comb through his hair."

Kurt giggled, but it sounded painful. "I left my bag downstairs."

She cupped his face with a hand. "I'll go get it. You stay here with Sam."

He shook his head. "You can't leave me alone with Sam! I might infect him with the queer!"

They were so depressed by how earnestly he said those words.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "That's a risk I think we're all willing to take." She pushed him into Sam's waiting arms, noting that Sam discreetly sniffed Kurt's hair as he held the other boy close to him.

Sam noted how perfectly Kurt fit against him. How delicious he smelled. How even though he was slightly taller, their crotches thoughtfully met at the same height.

 _Gay!_ his subconscious screamed at him.

"Cool."

Santana smirked. "I'll go get our gear. If I'm not back in five minutes, call the police. The others will need them."

He grinned and nodded his head, his eyes sparkling as he watched her stalk off.

He then pulled Kurt even more tightly against him and smiled with satisfaction.

* * * * *

Santana clattered down the stairs, dark eyes gleaming and murder on her mind.

Why the fuck did she ever think these plebeians worthy of her presence? She liked Glee. She liked singing and dancing. But she didn't like them and all of their big bags of bullshit. Sam seemed to be of a similar mind, which was awesome. She might have been the second-string cheerleader and he might have been the second-string quarterback, but together they would be amazing. And throwing Rainbow into the mix? Classic.

Heads would roll; she'd make sure of that, starting with Karofsky. That was some sick shit, and she wasn't going to abide it. So maybe she didn't have the power of the Cheerios anymore, but who needed them? She was Santana Lopez. One word from her and Karofsky was finished. She licked her lips with anticipation.

She walked into the basement proper and curled a lip. Berry was still singing some stupid, sappy love song, even though Pain was passed out beside her. Artie and Brittany were canoodling in his wheelchair, and Santana thought that actually looked kind of hot. She'd have to look into acquiring one for Sam and Rainbow. And for herself, of course.

She was _definitely_ getting in on that action in some way or another, even if it was just to watch while holding the camera.

Asian and Other Asian were sharing a sleeping bag, spooning against each other in a way that was so precious, Santana wanted to hurl. Finn and Quinn were having an intensely-heated whispered conversation, while Hebrew National and Big Girls Don't Cry were actually and not-so-quietly _fucking_ over in a corner. 

She winced. It was just so gross. Not because Lauren was big, but because the two of them together was just odd. Who knew the Puckhole was a secret sub? 

She shook her head and stomped over to the chair, grabbing Rainbow's fabulous trench and Louis Vuitton bag, which she _so_ wanted. First thing tomorrow, she was making him take her shopping. It was high past time that she acknowledged her inner fashionista. There was more to life than a cheerleading uniform. A look of bliss crossed her face as she hurriedly scooped up her own bag and that of Hot Lips.

She then decided she couldn't _possibly_ leave without expressing herself. That was one Schuester Moral Message she was happy to heed.

She stormed over to Finn and slapped him sharply across the face. He cried out and looked up at her with his trademarked Hurt Look.

"I know everything you said to Kurt," she snapped. "You're a complete asshole and a total hypocrite."

"What are you talking about?" he whined.

She sneered. "I'd tell you not to play dumb, but we all know you're not playing. You're just lucky I got here before Evans, or you wouldn't be able to walk without need of a colostomy bag for the foreseeable future."

"Sam?" Quinn whispered.

Santana rolled her eyes. "Subtlety is not your forte, Hooker Barbie. He knows all about you and Hudson, and he could care less. He thinks you're perfect for one another and hopes you'll be very happy together." She smiled. "Hey, Hudson! Have you told your renewed squeeze how you bullied Kurt into dropping Sam as his duet partner? Did you tell her that you all but called him a rapist? How about how you actually _did_ call him a fag?"

" _What!_ " Quinn roared.

"A little late for the righteous indignation, isn't it, Q?" Santana asked smoothly. "You haven't bothered with Kurt or Jones since you crawled your way back on top of the pyramid, so why start now? Kurt doesn't need you."

"He's my friend," Quinn insisted, seething. Why hadn't Kurt told her? For that matter, why hadn't Mercedes? Unless Mercedes didn't know, which was - wow. Still, Finn had to pay.

"Not anymore."

Quinn frowned and was about to request clarification, but Santana cut her off.

"Hudson, you and Kurt might be brothers now, but that's just a legality. He wants nothing to do with you, and I certainly don't blame him. If you ever speak to him again with such hateful words, you're going to be dealing with me, and if you're stupid enough not to recognize that for the threat – no, the _promise_ – that it is, you deserve what I'll do to you."

"I love Kurt," Finn whimpered.

"No, you love what he does for you. You love that he helps you pick out your ugly outfits and how he cooks your meals and how he helps you with your homework and how he listens to your problems and gives you good advice that you never follow. That's over now. He has me and he has Hot Lips. You remember Sam, don't you, Hudson? Your friend? The one you convinced to join Glee? The one whose girlfriend you're sitting with right now?" She frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I call you Hudson? The way you're acting, I'm sure I must have meant _Puckerman_."

Finn flinched.

"Both of you can eat shit and die."

She stomped away, muttered a vicious insult at a slumbering Mercedes, and sauntered up to Rachel.

"Just tell me one thing, Berry," she screamed.

Rachel abruptly stopped singing and looked at Santana.

"How could you do it? How could you do that to Kurt? After all you've been put through because of Hudson, Puckerman, and St. James, how could you do the exact same thing to someone you have the nerve to call a friend?"

Confusion, guilt, and finally bravado flashed across Rachel's face. "It's not always about Kurt, buddy."

And that's when Santana Lopez knocked Rachel Berry the fuck out.

* * * * *

She returned to the living room, only to find Rainbow and Hot Lips back on the sofa with Kurt asleep, his head resting in Sam's lap.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Don't start," Sam said, rolling his eyes. "I think sleep is the best thing for him right now. You saw how he was earlier. It was kind of scary."

She allowed herself to nod.

"I thought he was having some kind of psychotic break. He sounded like a robot or something. After you left, he started freaking out because he realized he told us about Karofsky." He swallowed heavily. "Santana, he's really _terrified_ of that guy. I didn't get it before, why he left, but now I do. Because what if Karofsky had tried…had tried to…"

"Rape him."

Sam nodded miserably.

"We're not going to allow that to happen."

Sam shook his head resolutely.

"We're not going to let anyone hurt him anymore."

"No, we won't."

"It's the three of us now."

He nodded and then narrowed his eyes. "In every way?"

"Does that idea bother you?"

"No."

She smirked.

"But what about Kurt?"

She shrugged. "Hey, obviously Bland has an exception. Maybe Rainbow does too. Even if he doesn't, as long as I can watch, I'm good."

He snorted. "I think that's a ways off."

She nodded seriously. "I get that. He has a lot he needs to work through. All of our self-esteem is in the toilet. Right now, I'm just proposing an alliance of sorts between the three of us. We'll be there for each other for whatever we need. To hell with those fuckheads downstairs."

His eyes shined. "I'm down with that."

"Good." She gestured to Kurt. "Now pick him up and let's go. Try not to hump him."

Sam rolled his eyes again and gently lifted Kurt into his arms. He was surprised by how easy it was. Kurt was so light. He wondered if that was a good thing.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"My house. You've been drinking, and while you're probably sober by now, let's not take any chances. I'll bring both of you back tomorrow to get your cars."

He nodded. "What about Bland?"

"What about him? I'm sure Berry will be more than happy to give him a ride."

He cocked his head, a small smile on his face. "What did you do down there?"

"That's a loaded question." Finally, she sighed. "I dumped Quinn on your behalf. Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

"I slapped Hudson pretty damned hard. I told him that Kurt had you and me now, and therefore didn't need some fake homophobic brother. I told him we knew about Hudson calling him a fag and about how he interfered with your duet. Then I called him a hypocrite for doing to you what Puck did to him."

"Awesome."

"And then I KO'd Berry."

He sputtered. "You did not."

"Bitch, please."

* * * * *

Sam got Kurt settled in the backseat. He did this by once again placing Kurt's head in his lap, running his fingers through Kurt's amazingly soft hair.

"What about his dad?"

Santana paused. Good question. She shrugged and began digging through Kurt's tote, emerging triumphantly with the boy's phone in her hand. She scrolled through the directory and dialed the entry for Home, placing it on speakerphone.

Sam raised a brow but remained silent.

_"Hello? Kurt?"_

"Mr. Hummel? Santana Lopez here."

There was a brief pause. _"Hello, Santana. Kurt's mentioned you before."_

"He has?" Her surprise was evident.

_"Said you were the best female singer in that glee club of yours, after Mercedes."_

She smiled against her will. _Take that, Berry!_

_"Mind telling me what you're doing with my boy's phone? Is he all right?"_

She sighed. "Kurt's had a difficult night, sir. I'm taking him home with me."

_"He wasn't drinking, was he?"_

"He and I were the only ones who weren't," she replied. "Instead, he was forced to watch the boy he loves make out with Rachel Berry."

_"What!"_

"You heard me. Kurt is completely devastated. He rambled a lot in a weird voice, like he didn't even know where he was or to whom he was talking. He blames himself, thinks he's completely unlovable, and is now of the opinion that his being gay is some kind of punishment for him being a horrible person. He cried himself to sleep."

_"Oh, Jesus. Please just bring him home. I'll take care of him."_

"Can't do that, Mr. H. See, Kurt's my friend," she said, realizing at once that it was true as far as she was concerned, "and I've been a pretty shitty friend to him lately, so I'm going to make that up to him. You have no idea what he's going through."

_"I'm his father!"_

"And I'm a part-time dyke who had to watch the girl I love make out with her new boyfriend, Wheels. I can help Kurt through this. You can't."

There was a long moment of silence.

_"I see. Thank you, Santana. Where was Finn during all of this?"_

"Finn was too busy making out with Quinn Fabray, the girlfriend of his best friend, Sam Evans."

_"What the fuck was going on at that party?"_

She chuckled mirthlessly; she couldn't help but like this man. "I wish to god I knew. This was a night from hell, and I'm just glad it's over." She paused. "Listen, Mr. H, while I've got you on the phone, I need to ask you something."

_"Yeah?"_

"Did you really tell Kurt to stay away from Sam? Because that's what Kurt told us, and he was really upset about it. So was I. So was Sam. Because Sam had no idea why Kurt had dropped him for the duet thing. He had agreed to sing with Kurt because he wanted to. He was really hurt when Kurt dumped him for no reason; he thought he had offended Kurt in some way. Of course, tonight we found out that Finn told Kurt that singing with Sam would get Sam killed."

_"Finn. Said. What?"_

"Exactly, and that's only the tip of the iceberg of what Finn told him. You should ask Finn about that, by the way. Kurt just wanted a friend, and I can't blame him, because his friends really aren't living up to their obligations. Sam likes Kurt, thinks he's a cool guy, and doesn't give a shit that Kurt is gay. There _are_ some guys like that, Mr. H. From all the things Kurt's told us about his awesome dad, I thought you were one of them, but apparently not. You hurt him badly. You pretty much told him that no guy would ever be willing to be his friend, and in Kurt's twisted mind, he interpreted that as him not being worthy of having _any_ friends, like there was something wrong with him."

Burt made a choking sound that was painful to hear. _"Oh, Christ."_

"I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, Mr. H," she said in a more sedate voice, "but you know how Kurt is. He internalizes everything. Anyone who's spent any time at all with him knows this. He believes the world is against him because, for the most part, it is. So that's why I'm not bringing home tonight. He needs some time, okay? Time away from Blaine, from Finn, and, yeah, I'll say it, from you."

She sighed. "You have an amazing kid, Mr. H. I can't tell you how many parents I know who would kill to have a son like Kurt. I know you love him and Kurt knows that too, but it's pretty obvious that as accepting as you are, you haven't accepted it fully. He tells everyone in a fifty-mile radius how great his dad is, so it's time for you to come across. He _needs_ you, Mr. Hummel, and _you_ need to step up. Because if Kurt ends up some fucking statistic, your ass is mine, and I promise you won't see me coming."

_"Did you just threaten me, girl?"_

"I did. And I meant it. I'm not letting anyone hurt him anymore. Deal with it."

_"I think I like you."_

She snorted. "It won't last long. I'm not likeable. And that's fine, I don't really aspire to be. But the one thing your son has taught me is that it's important to be a good friend. So I'm going to be that for him, and I really don't give a fuck what you or anyone else thinks about it."

_"Now I know I like you."_

"You have the Glee directory, right?"

_"Yeah."_

"Then you have my address and phone number if there's an emergency. I'll make sure Kurt is safely returned to you tomorrow, but expect me and Sam Evans to be regular fixtures in your house from now on."

_"You're more than welcome, both of you."_

"And in the interest of full disclosure, I should make you aware that I slapped the hell out of your stepson and then punched out Berry. I left Harry Potter curled up in his pile of vomit in which he'd passed out. He can figure out how to get back to your house and get his car. He's not Kurt's problem anymore; I'll make sure of that."

_"Jesus, girl. Who the hell are you?"_

"I'm Satan. Welcome to my new world order."


	2. Exodus

Santana went on autopilot as she navigated her car towards her house, mind racing with the night's events and what might happen next. It was like she was trapped in a _90210_ episode, but with much better acting.

She knew that when morning and sobriety arrived, Kurt's phone would be blowing up with calls and texts from his friends, all offering pseudo-support and condolences over Blank's indiscretion, while ducking any responsibility they might have for not sticking up for him when it counted. In fact, to her knowledge, the only one who had ever done so was Sam, and they barely knew each other. She had the idea that Studly Do-Right was a major Pollyanna, but she had the feeling she could trust him. More importantly, _Kurt_ could trust him.

She could already hear the arguments of the others in her mind.

Mercedes would coo and henpeck at Kurt's broken heart and in the next breath scold him for not taking action prior to the kiss, as well as for leaving with Sam and Santana rather than coming to her, despite the fact that she had witnessed everything and done nothing to interfere. Mercedes was a good friend but she was also bullheaded and believed she was always right, and that others' opinions shouldn't be taken into consideration.

Jones was very possessive of Kurt and her protectiveness was often smothering. Santana knew that she herself could never stand to call someone as suffocating as Mercedes her best friend. Jones treated Kurt like a child more often than not, a foolish boy who didn't understand himself or anyone else. She was strangely myopic about his abilities. She would concede his singing talent and flair for fashion, but otherwise viewed him as though he were an adorable pet who needed training. It was pathetic, considering how unsophisticated Mercedes herself was.

It was actually really fucking weird, because Santana believed that Kurt was one of the wisest people she had ever known. How the hell did Jones not see this as well?

Not that Santana knew him all that well, but she had observed him carefully over the years and listened when he spoke. He was very interesting, and his bitchy, caustic remarks were as humorous and they were compelling. So, no, they weren't friends, but they understood each other, at least as far as motivations and worldviews were concerned. And because she had watched him so closely, she also came to understand quite a bit about Mercedes Jones.

Jones was extremely passive-aggressive and easily threatened when it came to others orbiting Kurt. She would smile, nod, and encourage him, only then to undercut his self-esteem and confidence subtly until he would eventually capitulate and entrench himself even more fully at her side. She became jealous and vindictive when he expressed an interest in someone or when someone was interested in him; that busted windshield was the perfect visual aid.

Santana wondered what Mercedes had said to Kurt about his crush on Finn, as well as his desire to sing with Sam. She imagined they had fought about both. It was always easy to tell when Kurt and Mercedes quarreled. Kurt's sarcasm about her wardrobe would take on epic proportions, whereas Mercedes would completely freeze him out, leaving him utterly alone. The very simple truth was that Jones was capable of great cruelty when it suited her.

Mercedes initially hadn't liked Blaine, which at least suggested she was a good judge of character, and had resented his insertion into Kurt's life, and thus into her own. She would see Blaine's kiss with Rachel as the perfect opportunity to drive a permanent wedge between Kurt and Blaine, conveniently leaving her to pick up the pieces. There was the added incentive of exacerbating Kurt's rancor toward Rachel, which would also call a halt to the fledgling friendship they had begun earlier in the year. Not that Rachel hadn't done that herself by kissing Blaine, but Mercedes would egg on Kurt's hate.

Santana had to admit it was pretty diabolical. It would also probably work, because Kurt's one constant blind spot was Mercedes. He leapt to her defense like a true warrior, and while she always had his back in public, Santana was willing to bet it was an entirely different story when they were alone. As much as Kurt proclaimed himself an honorary girl, as well as he understood that women could be petty and catty and self-serving, it probably never entered his mind that it was also true of Mercedes.

She suspected Mercedes' worst nightmare was that Kurt would find a woman just as strong as she herself was and replace her, so, just for shits and giggles, Santana planned to do exactly that.

And to get up close and personal with Hummel's dick, at least as much as he would allow.

Part of the appeal was that she would be going where no woman had ever gone before, but it wasn't like it would be any hardship. Hummel was a seriously hot piece of ass, and if he was receptive to her in any way, no matter how small, she was going to seize the opportunity. The fact that Dwayne thought Kurt unsexy only cemented his idiocy in her mind. She knew girls who would gladly queue up if they thought they had a shot at Kurt Hummel, and once he was out of this hellhole, the boys would be beating down his door.

Hudson would also be a problem. For some reason she didn't understand, Hudson had the uncanny ability to manipulate Kurt; Finn knew it and took advantage of it. She didn't know if Kurt had some stupid leftover guilt for the way he had acted when he was crushing on Hudson, or if Kurt truly believed in all of that Brady Bunch bullshit his father and stepmother were expecting of him. If Mercedes was a blind spot, Hudson was a soft spot. Jesus, she could only hope Kurt didn't have some lingering love for that bumbling live-action Magilla Gorilla. Hudson wasn't even that hot! And she ought to know, after all.

Hudson would try to play the brother card while simultaneously shifting responsibility to Kurt himself; after all, it was Kurt who had introduced Blaine into their little circle. Hudson always sought to blame others for his own failures. He would conveniently forget that he was the one who had lied to Rachel, that he was the one who had dumped her for kissing Puck. Yet he blamed Santana for their night together, as if she had seduced him, when he had been a very willing participant. All she had done was make an offer; she hadn't forced him into anything. Still, it would make a good bomb to drop if Hudson got out of line.

Her grin was feral.

She wondered how Finn would spin his reunion with Quinn; how he would justify the fact that he had vilified her last year for cheating on him and yet now he was the one cheating _with_ her; that everything Puck had done to him he was now doing to Sam.

In fact, this might be the perfect opportunity to drive a permanent wedge between Hudson and Puckerman. She didn't care about either one of them, but if Puck was firmly against Hudson, he'd probably side with Kurt just out of spite. And then Santana would make sure Puck would pay for his every slight against Kurt.

This was just getting better and better.

Quinn's bitch reputation would be upheld, as her actions in reclaiming her former boyfriend while sandbagging her nemesis would be lauded. Hell, Santana herself would have applauded her if Hudson had been worth anything. Evans would get totally shafted. There would be initial sympathy given to him as the wronged party, but it would dry up soon enough and he'd be regarded as a loser who couldn't satisfy his girlfriend.

Well, she'd take care of that.

She was sure that Finn would be able to rationalize his selfishness. She didn't know how, but he was gifted that way. He loved the spotlight as much as Rachel. He played it to the hilt and milked it for everything it was worth, but always cast himself as the martyr, the perpetual victim of whom everyone took advantage. It was sickening that he was allowed to get away with it, and she wondered what life was like inside the Hummel-Hudson household. If she were Kurt, she would have fled for boarding school too.

She added yet another item to agenda: turn Burt Hummel and his wife, Finn's own mother, against Hudson.

Her eyes flicked up toward the rearview mirror and she watched Evans continued to cuddle Kurt in his lap, running his fingers through the boy's hair and humming some country song she vaguely recognized, which, the hell? Fucking hick towns.

But it was nice, watching someone taking care of Kurt for a change. Sure, it was pretty obvious that Evans wanted in Kurt's pants, but, fuck, who could blame him? It would have been better if he had declared his interest months ago, but she supposed that perhaps the timing had been off, or Evans had wanted to redo his roots before he made his move or something. Whatever.

But there was no denying that Sam legitimately cared for Kurt. Her heart probably would be melting right now if she wasn't such a cantankerous bitch.

Good for her.

* * * * *

"So is this a new thing?" she asked.

He was silent for a long moment. "No," he finally said.

And, apparently, that was all he had.

How dare he leave her wanting more!

Sam sighed softly, as if sensing her perturbation. "I've never been into another dude before. I mean, I was serious when I told Kurt when we first met that I didn't care that he was gay. Sexual orientation doesn't bother me, and I don't know why it bothers anyone else; it's not like they're directly affected. I was part of the Gay/Straight Alliance at my old school, which, despite being in the South, was a lot more progressive than McKinley. I had gay and bisexual friends and I respected and defended them, but I never considered myself anything other than straight. It wasn't as though I didn't know I had options; it's that I had never truly considered them."

She thought about his words, intrigued by them, and wondered about her own sexual identity. She felt all of this internal and external pressure to declare herself _something_ , but she didn't want to, felt no need to do so. She had slept with dozens of guys, but she had never fallen in love with one, not even Puck. Conversely, the only girl she had been with was Brittany and she was fairly certain she was in love with her, but how was she supposed to know for sure? She loved Brittany, absolutely. She felt protective of her and wanted to be with her all the time, but did that mean she was in love with her?

Was she bisexual or lesbian? By actions alone she would be considered bisexual, but by feelings a lesbian. But lesbian didn't sound right to her, didn't _feel_ right. She liked having sex with guys. It was awesome when they knew what they were doing. Yet the only emotional intimacy she had ever experienced was with Brittany, the only girl who had ever caught her eye. So was Brittany her exception, not just to girls, but to everything? What if Kurt was Sam's exception? Could she be Kurt's exception? Did everyone have an exception?

Fuck, did it even matter? She was sixteen. Why couldn't she just be with whomever she wanted? Why did it have to be labeled? Why did she feel compelled to label herself? What would it prove? This was her life, not the Pepsi Challenge.

"Can I ask you something?"

He sighed again, this time with resignation. "I guess."

She ignored his wariness; his permission wasn't really required. "Were you in love with Quinn?"

Her question startled him, she could tell, and she wondered if anyone had ever asked him that, if he had ever asked himself.

"I don't think so," he said slowly, haltingly, as if tasting the words on his tongue to determine their veracity, "but I've never been in love before, so it's not like I have anything to measure it against. I had feelings for her, but we both went in to this with an agenda, so I don't even know if those feelings were real or manufactured by me to justify the relationship."

"So how do you know if your feelings for Kurt are real?" She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.

"I'm not sure I can explain it," he replied. "I felt an immediate connection to him. I wanted to sing with him, I wanted to be his friend. I was…really angry when Finn warned me away from Kurt, like he was trying to keep me from something I wanted, but I didn't know why I wanted it."

He paused. "And I was jealous of Blaine. I didn't know it was jealousy at first; I just thought it was anger that Blaine had gotten something I that should have been mine, even if I didn't know just what that was." He paused. "I think I allowed myself to believe I was just after friendship, that I was upset Blaine had gotten the friend I wanted, and I think part of that was because Kurt had no other guy friends. I wanted to be that guy for him, the one who was cool and who didn't care about labels and names, but I _did_ care. I don't even think I realized how much I cared until Kurt had left McKinley."

"Until he had left you?" she quietly asked.

Sam made some noise in his throat, a deep growl that actually sounded menacing and, for a brief moment, she regretted asking. Then she remembered that she didn't care what he thought of her. Right.

"Yeah," he said, his voice sounding strangled. "From the outside, it looked perfect, you know? Like Blaine was some kind of white knight who swooped in and rescued Kurt from the evil villain, just like I'd wanted to do. And then Blaine kept him safe in some Hogwarts ivory tower. But the tower can't keep you safe from what's locked inside with you. That's when I got that Kurt didn't need to be rescued. He just needed to be acknowledged, and Blaine was the first to do that for him. Or so it seemed."

She considered that statement and liked it, as inelegantly phrased as it was. "And now?"

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Now? Now I know that I want to be with Kurt. When I saw Blaine kiss Rachel tonight, I hated him. I seriously wanted to beat him to within an inch of his life, and not just because he was hurting Kurt. It was because he didn't _know_ he was hurting Kurt. I was offended by his ignorance of Kurt's feelings for him, because it came across as a dismissal. How can someone be that callous? That clueless?

"Then I realized that while it was pretty obvious Kurt had feelings for Blaine, he never talked about Blaine's feelings for him. Or if he did, I don't know about it. So maybe Kurt manufactured some feelings in his head, or maybe he was reading the situation wrong, but some part of me just _knows_ that Blaine knew Kurt loved him and was ignoring it because it was easier than dealing with it. Maybe he didn't know how to deal with it or maybe he liked keeping Kurt dangling on a string, making sure he was there as a backup."

She winced. Okay, that description hit a little too close to home. Shit, had she treated Brittany like that? She rather thought she had.

Sam rolled his neck. "And then tonight happened and all I wanted to do was protect Kurt, to make him feel better, because it just sucks that he's always the one who gets left behind." He turned and looked out the window at the passing scenery. "But then it changed."

Santana sensed she was on the verge of a breakthrough, that whatever Sam said next would be important not just for him, but for her as well. "Changed how?"

He shifted restlessly, doing his best to make sure he didn't disturb Kurt. "Because suddenly it was no longer about Blaine hurting Kurt; it was about me proving to Kurt that I would never hurt him. So when you asked me if I deserved Kurt, I knew the answer was no, because if I did, I would have stepped up back in September and dealt with my shit instead of shunting it to the side like Finn or Puck does. Yeah, I'm a coward and I don't deserve him, but I want him and know I would never hurt him." He hesitated. "But you know what really scares me?"

"What?" she reluctantly asked.

"I know for sure that _he_ could hurt _me_ , and that fucking terrifies me."

It was like a fist in her gut.

* * * * *

Eventually he had to satisfy his curiosity. "Why are you doing this?"

"I don't even know anymore. I don't know if I ever did."

It was a better, and more honest, answer than he had expected.

"You know what it is to be lonely, don't you?" she asked. "To be in a room crowded with people you know, whom you would consider to be your friends, and yet you feel utterly alone."

"Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm really fucking tired of feeling that way," she hissed, voiced harsh with bitterness.

"Maybe you should stop pushing people away," he softly suggested.

"Maybe people should stop letting me. Maybe all I want is for someone to start pushing back."

His eyes widened. "I think I get it."

"Maybe you do. Now let us never speak of it again."

He smiled. "For now. But you know that if you start this, if you really open yourself to the possibility, Kurt will push back. Are you ready for that? Can you handle it? Or will you push him away just like everyone else has?"

"I don't know," she admitted after several seconds of terse silence. "I honestly don't know. And, yeah, that bothers me."

* * * * *

"Don't you think you were a little harsh on his dad?"

"No."

He eyed the back of her neck. "Really?"

"Really," she snapped back. "He doesn't get a free pass because he's a decent parent. I pressed him because he needed to be pressed, because Kurt was too afraid to do it himself. That he told Kurt to stay away from you, that he automatically sided with Finn without even bothering to ask Kurt about it, was really fucked up. I don't think Kurt even argued with him, he just gave up, believing his own father wouldn't listen to what he had to say.

"Don't get me wrong," she continued. "I don't know the man, and from everything I've heard, he's an awesome dad – he loves his kid – but that doesn't mean that just because he accepts Kurt is gay that he's happy about it."

"Most parents probably wouldn't be."

"Would yours?" she baldly asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Me being gay might not bother them, but the wall of shit that would come crashing down on me would. What parent wants that for their kid?"

She noted that he had phrased his answer as a loose hypothetical. He wasn't admitting to being gay, either because he wasn't or because he wasn't ready. She wanted him to state himself clearly, if only because she couldn't do the same. A part of her really envied Kurt for knowing who he was from such a young age, and another part really admired his conviction, his certainty.

"Agreed," she said, "and Hummel Senior probably feels the same way, but he doesn't express it that way. When Kurt came out – this is according to Brit, who got it from the horse's mouth – his dad said that he knew, that he had always known, and that he loved him. Well, that's terrific, but that wasn't what Kurt needed to hear. He needed his father to say it was _okay_. I don't think he's said that yet. Kurt needs to be validated. He needs someone resolutely on his side, that's what a parent is supposed to do, but I get the feeling that Kurt's believes his father's love is conditional."

"But you don't know that for sure," Sam argued.

"I don't, but even if it's not true, I _do_ think that's how Kurt feels. He's always been set apart, Evans. His clothes, his voice, his mother's death, his sexuality. He's come to expect judgment from all sides and he usually gets it. Hell, even if someone supported him to their dying breath, I don't think he'd believe them; he's been conditioned not to."

Sam unconsciously tightened his hold on Kurt.

"They were all friends once: Kurt, Hudson, and Puck. But then it changed. Kurt didn't change, but the perception others had of him did. He never hid who he was because it never occurred him to do so; he never acted differently because he was always different. He just didn't know what to call himself."

"But they did," Sam whispered.

"They sure did, and everything you can think of, they said to him. Then they upped the ante by tossing him in dumpsters and locking him in Port-A-Crappers and nailing his lawn furniture to his roof and throwing pee balloons at him. And Finn was a part of all of that. I wonder if his mother and stepfather know about _that_."

Sam closed his eyes. "Jesus."

She snorted. "I'd like to say that Jesus has nothing to do with this, but we both know that's not true. Kurt's atheism is just one more thing that sets him apart. Almost the entire glee club attacked him for it, demanding to know why he didn't believe in god. I think the better question is why he _would ___he believe? If there is a god, it's pretty obvious that Kurt was made to be that god's bitch."

She guffawed. "It was so hypocritical that it was really hard not to laugh. Finn isn't religious, but he was so offended by Kurt's lack of faith. Hudson may believe in some higher power, but he thought that same higher power was a fucking grilled cheese sandwich! His concept of god is that of a genie, just hanging out and waiting to offer him three wishes. Puck's Jewish when it suits him; he doesn't keep Kosher and he never goes to temple. The only reason he had a bar mitzvah was for the presents.

"And don't even get me started on Jones and Fabray. Kurt was facing the very real possibility that he would lose his sole remaining parent, that he would be left completely alone in a town which openly despises him, and the biggest question on their small minds was how best to witness to him. It was nauseating. His father was in a fucking _coma_. I don't even know where the hell Kurt was staying during all of that."

Sam's mouth fell open.

"I didn't care enough at the time to find out," she blithely continued, "but I assume if he had been staying with Jones, she would have said something. Kurt would never have stayed with Finn, and there's really no point in considering other options. So that means he was alone in his house, with one parent dead and the other hovering between life and death. He was left to fend for himself, which is just so fucking typical."

She shook her head in frustration. "One thing you come to understand when watching Kurt Hummel is that he hates being beholden to other people. He doesn't like relying on them, probably because he doesn't trust their reasons. If you look at the circle around him, they all use him as their emotional crutch, but he has no one to whom he can turn. That was pretty obvious as Mercedes was dragging him off to her church."

She was working herself up into an epic rant and didn't give a shit. The more she thought about it, the more she hated them, and the more she hated herself for acting like a blasé bitch when someone who could very well have been a friend had been hurting more badly than she could even comprehend. She had thought long and hard about what would have happened had the situations been reversed, and she knew that even though she and Kurt weren't close, he would have come to her side immediately, unprompted, and done whatever she had asked of him.

That's why Hummel was awesome and everyone else was a schmuck, including her, because she had not only done nothing to stop it, she had abetted it by remaining silent. It was also why Hummel sucked, because he made people around him vulnerable to their own damn consciences.

"And then Jones and the others had the gall to be _offended_ when he was upset by their proselytizing. That prayer circle wasn't about making _him_ feel better; it was about making _them_ feel better, because they didn't know what else to do. They didn't know how to help him. And rather than ask, they assumed they knew what was best and then had the audacity to make him feel ashamed for not appreciating their efforts."

Sam reflected on her words, for the most part agreeing with her.

He had faith. Sometimes he questioned it and other times he doubted it outright, but it was his and he embraced it. But that didn't mean that he felt others should do the same, and they definitely shouldn't be forced. Kurt's lack of faith didn't bother him because it wasn't his business.

It was his opinion that faith was completely separate from religion; faith was intensely personal. He was never one for proselytizing, because he didn't believe that you could force or compel someone to have a relationship with God. They either wanted one or they didn't.

He attended church and found comfort in the sense of community it afforded, but he also knew that he and his faith would be just fine without weekly meetings. He was suspicious of organized religion because it could provide a breeding ground for bigots and zealots to sow their hatred.

Sam didn't object to Kurt's atheism, and suspected Kurt wouldn't object to his beliefs. He was reluctant to ask Santana about her own, though he was curious. He also thought she could kill him, dispose of his body, and then bake cookies for Kurt in under an hour. It was hot and awesome in a really disturbing way.

"I smell fear," she purred. "I like that smell."

Fucking psychic cheerleader ninjas.

"I'm scared," he admitted.

"Why?"

"This is all happening so fast. He's in my lap, Santana, and I'm afraid that when he wakes up, he won't want to be ever again."

She nodded slowly. "Could you deal with just being his friend?"

"I'd like to think so, but I don't know. I don't know if I'm that selfless."

She snorted. "I'm sure as hell not."

"He might not have an exception," Sam whispered.

"I know."

He rolled his eyes. She was going to make him work for it. Hell, why was he even surprised? "And if he doesn't? How does that affect your plans?"

She raised a brow. " _My_ plans? I thought we were in this together."

He heard the doubt creeping into her voice, though she tried to suppress it. He'd never seen her like this before and really didn't know how to deal with it. There was just a slight glimmer of vulnerability to her, but it was so much more than he had ever suspected her of possessing, and that she was letting him see it? Fuck. He didn't want to screw this up. He didn't want to alienate her. He…didn't want to lose her.

"I don't want to lose you."

He blinked rapidly. Had he just said that out loud? Fuck!

She grimaced, a sharp rejoinder all but begging to burst forth and put him in his place, but he had gotten to her, probably because he had sounded as surprised to say it as she was to hear it.

"We need to put our cards on the table before this goes any further," Sam babbled. "If we can't deal with each other, we can't do anything to help Kurt and we might as well just take him home."

"Agreed," she hissed.

"I want him, San. I want him so bad I can fucking taste it. I want to bury myself inside him until I become part of him. I want to hurt everyone who's ever hurt him. I don't want anyone else to touch him ever again, except for you. You're okay. But no one else."

"Whoa," she murmured under her breath, her eyes wide. Who knew the guy had so much passion inside him?

He swallowed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm so scared. I've never felt this way before. I don't know what to do. What am I going to say to him tomorrow? How will I look him in the eye? I don't want to let him go, but he might not even want me. He could wake up at any moment and demand to be taken back to Blaine and all will be forgiven. But I can't let him ago. Not now."

"Holy shit, Evans," she whispered.

"I don't know what's going on with me," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "What am I doing? Why now? Oh god, he might end up hating me. I couldn't stand that. Why didn't I figure this out before? I wasted so much time with him. Maybe he wouldn't want me as a boyfriend, but we still could have been friends. At least that would be something. All I have now is some really freaky crush that's tearing me up inside. I don't know what to do."

She quickly pulled the car over, put it in park, and turned around in her seat to look at him.

"Evans."

"Evans!"

" _Sam!_ "

He gasped sharply, startled, and abruptly raised his gaze.

She almost reeled back. His eyes were huge and frightened and she didn't know what the fuck to do or say. Part of her just wanted to kick him out of her car so she could go home and forget this miserable night had ever happened, but she had started this and she would see it through. Even though she was fairly sure she was going to fuck it up. More than once.

"We can call this off right now. I can take you home and then call Hummel Senior and tell him things have changed. Kurt won't know anything about this. You can take some time to get your head together and then maybe approach him later."

"Blaine," he whispered, teeth chattering.

She nodded. "It could happen. Blank could wake up tomorrow filled with remorse, seek Kurt out, and beg his forgiveness. Or maybe he'll decide he's bi and crush Kurt all over again. You need to decide if you're willing to let that happen or if you're going to step up and cut Blur off at the knees. The question is whether or not you're strong enough to do it."

He opened his mouth but said nothing.

"Remember when I asked you if you had loved Quinn? You said you weren't sure."

He nodded.

"Do you love Kurt?"

His eyes widened to the size of banjos. He gave a shaky nod.

"Then say it."

"I…I love him."

"Say his name."

"I love Kurt." He blinked slowly. "I love Kurt."

"Are you prepared for everything that comes with that? Of the abuse that will be handed to you?"

He scoffed. "You mean Karofsky?"

"Screw him. After what he did to Kurt, he's effectively neutralized. I'll see to that."

"Then what do you mean?"

She stared at him. "If you want him, if you want to be with him, then you need to be prepared to fight for him. You'll have to fight Finn, Mercedes, Blaine, and god knows who else. If you can't do that, walk away now. It might kill you, but I'd like to think you care too much for Kurt to give him hope and then just snatch it away." She gave him a measured look. "Are you ready to be strong?"

He frowned. "You quote Buffy?"

"I have many skills."

"And now you quote Xena?"

Damn it, she did not find his confusion adorable. "Can you be Kurt's Xander?"

A light went on his eyes. Jesus, he was so easy.

"I can do this," he said. "I want him. Fuck everyone else."

She smirked. "So you do have a pair. Kurt will be so pleased."

He blushed. "And what about you?"

She shrugged. "I won't lie. I want to fuck him. I want to fuck you. I want both of you to fuck me at the same time."

His eyes bulged. "Wow. I mean, wow. _Wow_."

She rolled her eyes. Why were so many teenage boys, guys who in their sexual prime, such prudes?

"Is that all you want?" he softly asked. "I don't know you well, Santana, but I think I like you. I'm definitely attracted to you, and I'd sure like to have sex with you, but I don't feel for you the way I do for him. I'm not sure I ever could."

She nodded, though she was stung. Still, it wasn't as though she was expecting anything different.

"But I'd like to be your friend," he continued. "I think I'd be pretty damn lucky to be able to call you that."

She inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. "I think I'd like that too."

"And Brittany?"

Ah, there was the rub. "I don't know," she eventually confessed. "She's with Wheels and, for whatever reason, he makes her happy. It's not like it is with Kurt and Blaine. From what I've seen and heard, all Blaine does is make Kurt miserable. But Artie really cares about Brittany and she cares about him. I don't know if they love each other, but if I love her at all, and I think I do, what would I be doing to her if I tried to break them up? I know I'm selfish enough to do it, but I don't know if I could live with myself after."

He held out his hand toward her. Eventually, she took it.

"What about Kurt?" he whispered. "He might not want anything to do with this, whatever this is."

"Maybe," she allowed, "but he let a lot slip tonight, no matter how unintentionally. He cares about you, Sam. He's attracted to you. He wanted a friend; specifically, he wanted _you_. I don't think that's changed. Sure, Blur came along, but what exactly has Dwayne given him? False hope? A place to be safe but that completely stifles him? A glee club where he's been shunted even further away from the spotlight? You saw Kurt at Sectionals. He looked completely out of it. He's not _happy_ , Sam."

"He said he'd been watching you," Sam quietly said. "He saw that you were lonely, that you were unhappy, and he wants better for you because he knows you deserve it. He wants to be your friend, Santana, but I think the question is whether or not you'll let him. Because if we start this, if he begins to believe that you're his shoulder to lean on, and you pull that shoulder away, it could really fuck him up. I don't know how much more disappointment he can stand."

She bit her lip and looked away. "It'll be hard for me," she acknowledged. "Kurt and I are a lot alike; perhaps too much alike. We push and push until we get what we want. He'll push me, I know it, and I'll push him, and we could end up imploding. That's where you come in. Right now, Kurt is a lot more emotionally unstable than I am, so when I reach the point where I start to get out of control, you'll need to rein me in."

"I can do that," he said, nodding. "You might need to do it for me, too."

She cocked her head. "Why?"

He licked his lips. "If it were up to me, I'd shake him awake right now and shove my tongue down his throat. I've had a boner since I pulled him against me in Rachel's living room. Having him on my lap is almost fucking unbearable. As much as I don't want to, I can see myself trying to rush things, trying to rush him. I know that's not good for him. I know that's not what he needs right now."

He sighed. "I've seen him with the other guys, Santana. He doesn't let them touch him. Whenever Finn tries to hug him, Kurt slips past him or distracts him. He becomes absolutely wooden whenever Puck gets near him. Puck truly scares him."

Her eyes widened. How had she missed that? Well. She'd take care of it. She was going to take care of Puck once and for all.

"Kurt's friends with Artie," Sam added, "but they're not friends that way. They don't spend a lot of quality hang time with each other. He's affectionate with Blaine, but I wonder how much of that is about Blaine, and how much of it is about the fact that Blaine is gay and accepts affection?"

"You think Kurt won't accept affection from you? Even if you tell him you love him?"

He sighed. "I'm not gay, Santana. I'm bisexual. I love Kurt. I want to be with Kurt. But we both know that he'll have a really difficult time accepting love from a guy who likes both guys and girls."

"You said Kurt's the only guy you've been attracted to," she countered.

He snorted. "You think he'll believe me? All he'll hear is _bisexual_ and he'll run away screaming. Even if he comes to accept that my feelings for him are real, there will always be some little voice in the back of his mind telling him that I'll leave him for a girl." He raised a brow. "Probably you."

"Me?"

"If we try this threesome thing, if we actually become friends and grow closer, he'll grow jealous of you and me. I'd be jealous of you and him."

She shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't be jealous of you and Kurt because I think it's fucking hot. Like I said before, as long as I can watch, I'm good. I'm after friendship. Sex is gravy."

He frowned. "Huh."

"What?" she asked.

"Maybe I've been making this harder than it needs to be."

"Maybe that's because your dick is so hard it could pound nails."

He shifted painfully. "No shit."

"When we get to my house, you can rub one out. No worries."

His mouth fell open. "Jesus Christ!"

Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. She couldn't believe she had ferreted it out earlier. "You're a virgin!"

He flushed. "So what?" he barked. "There's nothing wrong with it!"

"I didn't say there was," she snapped. "I'm just surprised. Fuck, god knows I sometimes wish I had waited." She pursed her lips. "Whatever. What did you mean about making things more…difficult?"

He gave her a wry grin. "I got so manic about loving Kurt, I forgot about _caring_ for him. As a friend. That's what he needs right now. He needs a friend, not a boyfriend. So I need to suck it up, shut the hell up, and be that for him. He doesn't need any more pressure."

"Can you do that?" she asked evenly.

"If I can't, then I really don't deserve him at all," he sighed, "but I know I need to take it slow. That shit he said about infecting me? He really _meant_ that." He shook his head. "I can believe that Finn sold him that line of bullshit, but I can't believe Kurt actually bought it."

She nodded. "There's a lot of damage we'll have to undo. Are you up for it?"

"I'll have to be."

She nodded again, more slowly. "Let's go home."

 

* * * * *

Santana carried their bags as Sam carried Kurt.

"What will your parents say?"

She shrugged. "They won't care. Once I explain what you and Kurt have been through tonight, they'll probably adopt you and make you learn Spanish."

"Kurt's already fluent."

She blinked. "What?"

"He's fluent in Spanish, which is why he takes French. He was tutoring me for a little while. He's actually fluent in French too, at least as far as speaking and comprehension goes. He's only taking the class to improve his translation skills."

"Huh. Okay." Yeah, smart was sexy. Smart plus Romance languages was even sexier. She shrugged and opened the front door. "Mom?"

"I'm in the kitchen, sweetheart," her mother called out.

Santana took a deep breath and nodded at Sam and indicating he should follow her.

Sam made his way toward the back of the, well, _mansion_ was the only appropriate word. He hadn't expected this. It wasn't like he had expected Santana to be poor, but she almost always wore her Cheerios uniform and her car was rather modest. Nice and clean, but not high-end. Of all the times he had thought her to be a bitch, she had never come across as a rich bitch. It was actually kind of cool.

Her mother stood at the sink, rinsing a few dishes. As they approached, the woman turned around to greet her daughter with a smile, only for that smile to slide slowly from her face as she took in her guests.

"Santana?" she asked, confusion and worry obvious in her tone.

Santana sighed. "Mom, this is my friend, Sam Evans."

Sam nodded.

The woman raised a brow. Friend? Since when did Santana have male friends? Boys who were…just friends? Wow. "What's going on?"

Santana pulled out a chair at the table and pushed Sam toward it. "Berry's party was a disaster. Lots of drinking and stupidity. I wish I had never gone."

Her mother's eyes widened. "And the other boy? Is he drunk? Do we need to go to take him to the hospital?"

Sam couldn't believe the calm this woman managed to project.

"No," Santana said. "He and I are the only ones who weren't drinking. Sam only had a couple of beers, but he had them with food."

Mrs. Lopez nodded at Sam with approval. "A wise decision."

He blushed and she was charmed.

"I took his keys anyway," Santana continued, crossing to the refrigerator and grabbing a couple of bottled waters, unscrewing one and placing it before Sam, before opening her own. "Until tonight, Sam was dating Quinn."

"Until tonight," Mrs. Lopez casually repeated.

Santana nodded. "He found out she was cheating on him with Finn."

"I'm so sorry, Sam," the woman said, her disdain of Finn and Quinn's behavior obvious.

Sam guessed Santana's mother knew the whole Finn/Quinn backstory.

"Thank you, ma'am," he mumbled, looking down at Kurt and pushing the boy's bangs off his face.

"And what of this other boy?" she asked her daughter.

Santana sighed. "We were playing Spin the Bottle. Lame and totally stupid, I know, but whatever. At any rate, Kurt's boyfriend had to kiss Berry. All of a sudden, they were making out like idiots and they just wouldn't _stop_. Kurt stood there watching and all the while his friends didn't do or say anything. Sam and I took him upstairs and he just started rambling in a weird monotone. Then he freaked out and cried himself to sleep. I'm pretty sure he was in shock."

She clucked with annoyance. "The boyfriend eventually passed out and I decided to bring Kurt home with me. The boyfriend can figure out his own ride. Not to mention that Finn is Kurt's stepbrother and uses Kurt as his own personal shrink. The last thing Kurt needs to deal with now is his brother's nadir of idiocy."

Her mother sat in silence, trying to assimilate all of this information. She was able to follow it, but so much still didn't make sense. She loved her daughter, but Santana was not what anyone would call generous. Still, she gathered that these two boys were in that glee club with her daughter, so perhaps Santana felt some compassion for their plights, as uncharacteristic as that might have been. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the boys; they were probably devastated, especially if the smaller one had indeed slipped into shock. Kurt, Santana had said.

"Kurt." She stood up and walked around the table to Sam, crouching down so that her face was level with that of the boy in his lap. "Kurt Hummel?"

Santana blinked. "How did you know?"

"You said he went into shock?" She felt his forehead; cool and clammy. He needed to be warmed up immediately. She also sensed if she tried to take Kurt from Sam, there would be problems. "Oh, Kurt," she whispered.

The boy's eyes fluttered open, his pupils dilated. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his vision to the sudden influx of light. "Hi, Dr. Lyddie," he whispered. "Am I in the hospital?"

"No, sweetheart," Lydia Lopez said soothingly. "You're at my house. Santana brought you and Sam home with her after the party."

He frowned. "You're Satan's mother?"

She blinked and then swallowed a snort. "Indeed I am."

"You're lucky," he whispered, closing his eyes again and returning to sleep.

It was hard for Sam to tell which Lopez woman was more shocked.

"How do you know Kurt, Mom?" Santana demanded.

"I was one of his mother's doctors," Lydia replied. "It was…a difficult case. Very sad."

Sam and Santana stared at her, then at each other, and finally down at Kurt.

"Right," Lydia said. "You boys are welcome to spend the night here. I know that no matter what I say, you all will end up in the same room, so I'm not even going to try and fight it. Sam looks like he wouldn't let go of Kurt if a gun was held to his head, and as for you, daughter, well, I don't know what's gotten into you, but I like it. Proof of your humanity every now and again does my heart good."

Santana rolled her eyes.

"Show Sam to your room," Lydia continued. She saw the various bags strung over her daughter's shoulders. "I assume the boys have changes of clothing. Sam, please help Kurt into his pajamas. Santana, keep Kurt warm and if he wants to sleep, let him. Do I need to call Burt?"

Santana shook her head. "I already did. He has our address and phone number." She paused. "He didn't say he knew you."

Lydia shrugged. "He probably didn't make the connection. You know I use my maiden name to practice."

Santana shuffled her feet. "Kurt never talks about his mom," she whispered. "What happened to her?"

Lydia glared at her. "You know better, Santana. I won't violate patient confidentiality _or_ Kurt's privacy." She paused. "What I will tell you is that Suzanne Hummel was a lovely woman who loved her son very much. Watching that sweet little boy sit by his mother's hospital bed for hours on end, day after day, month after month..." She took a deep breath. "It was painful to witness. He was so strong for her, up until the very end." She wrung her hands. "That's all I will tell you. If you want to know more, ask Kurt. If he doesn't wish to tell you, respect his boundaries."

Santana nodded. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Go on now," her mother prodded. "After I finish these dishes, I'll be turning in. No funny business, daughter."

Santana smirked. "Sam loves Kurt."

Sam paled, his mouth falling open. "Santana," he hissed.

Lydia didn't miss a beat. "I see. In that case, Sam, you will _not_ be helping Kurt into his pajamas. Neither will you, Santana. Don't think I don't know you. He can sleep in his clothes."


	3. Dormiens

As Sam climbed the staircase toward Santana's bedroom with a slumbering Kurt in his arms, he slowly felt himself devolving into a caveman. But he still liked videogames and sci-fi and other modern conveniences, so maybe he was a GEICO caveman. He just hoped this didn't mean he had to take up bowling. He was also certain that dorking out inside his own head was just as pathetic as doing it in polite company. Wow. _Fail_.

He looked down at Kurt, now curled tightly against him, and felt like a total creeper because Kurt's hot nostril breath was seeping through his thin t-shirt and making his nipple hard. Damn. Lame much?

_Okay, self, time to take stock. First, you're an epic dweeb. Sure, you're a teenage virgin who's horny more often than Hudson is hungry, but you've had a boner for the last half hour and now your nipple could cut glass. Seriously, the fuck? Okay, so you've got the object of your lust – **love** , asshole, **love**! Don't be so fucking shallow! – in your arms and he looks all helpless and vulnerable and so damn cute that it makes you want to run out into a tornado and rescue kittens – What. The. Hell. – to impress him and hopefully score some smoochies – Smoochies. Really, Sam? – but you need to get it together. Especially since I'm pretty sure Santana is watching you and silently mocking you. And she won't remain silent for long._

Sam blinked as he came to the end of the hall where a waiting Santana had her hands on her hips and was smirking enough for the entire gay coterie of the fashion industry. Or Kurt. Holy shit, how he had not realized that Kurt and Santana had the _same damn smirk?_

Santana rolled her eyes playfully. "You've really got it bad." She watched with enjoyment as the blush crept up his neck and spread across his cheeks and decided not to be a bitch for the moment. "It's nice," she said softly. "It's nice to see someone who wants him so much. He deserves that, Evans," she said fiercely. "And maybe you do, too."

Sam shook his head. "You need to start warning me when you do that. It's very confusing, and a little scary, when you're human."

She smirked. Again. "Which is why I do it." She threw open her bedroom door and stormed inside, immediately crossing the room toward her king-sized bed and turning it down. "You can put him in the middle. I take right and you've got the left."

He hesitated for a moment. "San?" he finally asked.

She stopped fluffing the pillows and looked up at him, not about to tolerate any nonsense about propriety. She was getting Evans and Hummel in her bed come hell or high water. They didn't have to _do_ anything; she just wanted be able to say they had spent the night in her room. She couldn't control how people interpreted a factual statement. 

"What?" she asked with suspicion.

Sam shuffled his feet. "It's just…the first time I picked him up, back at Rachel's house, I noticed how light he is. Like, _really_ light. As light as Quinn when we did those lifts in rehearsal." He didn't notice her deepening frown. "You've known him longer than me. Is that normal for him?"

"Put him down on the bed," she repeated, pleased when he rushed to obey.

Once Kurt was supine, she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up. Only to discover another shirt beneath it. She grabbed that one and repeated the process to be met with...another shirt.

"Jesus, how many fucking layers is he _wearing? ___" she demanded. Finally, she grabbed the latest hem and shoved her fingers beneath it until she felt his skin, gently lifting them up. "Oh, god."

Sam's eyes widened and he backed away. "I can see his ribs. Jesus fuck, look at his ribs!" he whispered harshly.

"This is recent," she insisted. "I saw him during Sectionals, when he was changing out of that stupid Hogwarts uniform. He was thin – he's always been thin – but not like this. What the fuck?" She shook her head angrily. "Stay here with him."

"What!" Sam felt himself slip into panic mode.

"Stay here with him," she slowly repeated, as if addressing a particularly ignorant toddler. "I'm going to get my mom." She sighed. "Sam, sit down. Hold his hand. If you haven't noticed, he sleeps just fine when you're near him."

She ignored the stupid, soft smile that overtook him and left the room.

* * * * *

Sam held Kurt's hand in his, eyes hungrily scanning over the appendage. Kurt's hand was so pale, so perfectly flawless. Like alabaster, not porcelain. Porcelain was too common for someone like Kurt. His fingers were long and slim – elegant, Sam thought – and he remembered the few times he had seen Kurt play the piano.

He wondered about Kurt and the piano, if Kurt felt the same thrill as his fingers splayed across the keys as Sam's own did when they plucked the strings of his guitar.

He wondered a lot of things about Kurt.

Could he really be Kurt's Xander? Did that mean Kurt was Buffy? Who were their Willow, Oz, and Cordelia? Santana would make a pretty good Cordy, Sam decided, although it was possible no one could fill those pumps. Schuester as Giles? Brr. Scary.

He remembered the episode _Welcome to the Hellmouth_. He remembered when Xander first met Buffy on the steps outside Sunnydale High. Xander had looked up into her eyes with awe.

_Can I keep you?_

Could he keep Kurt? He sure as hell wanted to. He was pretty sure that after having Kurt in his arms that he could never give the boy back. Certainly not to Blaine.

"You're mine," Sam whispered his thumb softly stroking the top of Kurt's hand. "I was stupid. I was lame. I was too scared to face what I knew to be the truth. I love you, Kurt. Please don't leave me. Not again. You're _mine_."

His.

Yeah. It was so obvious now, so clear. Suddenly his head was filled with Rachel's voice singing _On A Clear Day You Can See Forever_. 

Jesus, why did Rachel have to intrude on _everything?_

He could do this. He _would_ do this. Fuck, he was already doing it. He would have Kurt. He would make Blaine pay. He would make Finn and Karofsky suffer. And he knew he could accomplish these things because Santana would be at his side.

She had always scared him, but now it was in a good way. He was pretty unsure what he felt about her, though. There was no denying that he found her attractive. Hell, when she'd brought up the idea of them being a threesome, he could picture himself burrowed inside her with no problem. Pretty awesome, really. But where did that leave Kurt?

Duh. Kurt would be fucking _him_. He supposed the idea should have frightened him or freaked him out, but instead he was intrigued and anticipatory. He shivered with delight. Would Kurt want to fuck him? What if Kurt was, what the hell was it called? A bottom? Was that right? Well, they would work it out. He sure as hell wanted to fuck Kurt; hopefully Kurt felt the same for him.

It would all come down to Kurt in the end. If Kurt had any interest in him at all but not Santana, it wouldn't even be a question. He wanted Kurt absolutely. And Santana said she would be okay with just watching. But that wasn't really fair to her. He didn't want to trample all over her feelings. He knew what it felt like not to be the wanted one.

He nodded. They were definitely going to have to set up some boundaries after they found out where Kurt stood on all of this.

"Getting ahead of yourself again, Evans," he muttered. "Be his friend, remember? That's what he needs right now. You'd rather love him in silence and suffer for it than not have him it all."

But then Kurt shifted, his head dropping to the side, and he whispered Sam's name in his sleep.

Sam felt his heart wanting to burst out of his chest.

* * * * *

Santana returned ten minutes later with her parents in tow.

At the sight of her father, Sam immediately shot to his feet and introduced himself, holding out his hand and expressing his gratitude for their hospitality. Robert Lopez looked slightly stunned and vaguely impressed as his hand enveloped Sam's and gave it a solid shake.

"Show me," Lydia whispered to her daughter.

Santana led her over the bed and again pulled up all of Kurt's shirts.

Robert gasped softly and looked to Sam, who was gnawing on his lip and staring down at Kurt with worry. Once he was conscious of the man's gaze, he shuffled his feet and blushed.

"He's a good fifteen pounds underweight," Lydia remarked, "which on a frame as slender as his is far too much." She pulled down his shirt and looked at her daughter. "You said this was recent?"

Santana nodded uncertainly. "I think so, but I can't know for sure. Ever since he transferred to Dalton…"

"The boy goes to Dalton?" her father asked.

"Because he was chased out of McKinley," Sam said bitterly.

The Lopez parents looked at him sharply and he wilted under the power of their combined gaze.

"What do you mean he was chased out?" Lydia demanded.

Sam looked helplessly at Santana, who sighed. She explained that Kurt was gay and slowly detailed all of the abuse and harassment he had been made to suffer at McKinley. With extreme reluctance, she also told them about Karofsky.

Lydia was appalled. "This is outrageous."

"And illegal," Robert added. "This boy was sexually harassed and molested by another student on school grounds, during school hours, and _nothing_ was done?"

"Kurt didn't tell anyone," Sam said. "He probably thought we wouldn't believe him." He stared down at the floor. "We weren't much help to him before and we knew he was being bullied."

Santana snorted. "I think you can except yourself from that statement, Hot Lips. You were new; you didn't know jack, but you were the only one who stood up to Karofsky and gave him a beatdown. You were like some kind of avenging angel."

Sam blushed furiously and shook his head. "Mike and Artie were there. Puck wanted to help, but he could've been sent back to juvie."

"I don't give a rat's ass," she said dispassionately. "Wheels can't fight, Chang's not much better, and Hudson acted like a little girl and did nothing to help his brother. You were the only one to stand up for Kurt. Don't make that out for any less than what it is. I certainly don't."

Robert considered Sam with a new-found respect.

"Does Kurt know you're in love with him, Sam?" Lydia gently asked.

Sam shook his head frantically. "I can't tell him. He's not ready. He technically still has a boyfriend, even though the idiot spent the night making out with Rachel. The last thing Kurt needs is more pressure. I won't do that to him."

Santana interrupted to shift the focus from Sam and his Big Gay Love for Kurt. "The only adult on Kurt's side was Coach Sylvester, but she was overruled by the school board."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Well, Schuester's a nice guy, but he's pretty oblivious to anything that's not about Rachel, Finn, or himself."

Santana grunted her agreement.

"Where was Burt in all of this?" Lydia quietly asked.

"I don't think he knows," Santana admitted. "Kurt feels this need to protect his father. I don't know much about their relationship, but they really love each other, you know? They look out for one another, but I don't think they communicate very well. I know they get homophobic calls at their house and at Kurt's dad's shop."

"What?" Sam demanded. "That's pathetic! Oh, yeah, it's so _brave_ calling up a teenage boy and harassing him over the phone, all while you're cloaked in anonymity. What a pack of fucking _cowards_."

He blinked, surprised by his invective and apologized to Santana's parents, who waved him off, unconcerned.

"Mr. Hummel was really upset when I talked to him earlier," Santana added. "When I told him what Blaine had done and the things Finn had said, he was almost crying. I don't think he really understands what Kurt goes through, and Kurt doesn't tell him."

"He probably knows more than you think, baby," Robert said. "Parents understand more than their children realize. He probably knows that Kurt was embarrassed and hurt and possibly quite scared, but didn't know how to approach him. I wouldn't be surprised if he thought aiding Kurt's denial was actually helping him, and I'm sure he also felt helpless because there was little he could do." He smirked. "But there's a lot _I_ can do."

Sam cocked his head and frowned.

Robert grinned wolfishly at him. "Did Santana happen to mention that I'm a lawyer?"

* * * * *

"Do you really think your dad can help?" Sam asked Santana after her parents had left the room.

The Lopezes had extracted a promise from their daughter that she would tomorrow invite Burt and Carole Hummel to the house for a much-needed discussion. She was fairly certain that Kurt would not be receptive, but she didn't care. If he wasn't going to manage his life, it was patently obvious that she would have to do it for him. After all, who better?

She shrugged. "I don't know. What I do know is that Dad is an even better bullshitter than he is an attorney. He'll scare the crap out of Figgins if Kurt gives the okay."

Sam sighed. "I'm just worried that the decision won't be left to Kurt, that it will be made for him. I don't know if he can deal with a loss of even more control."

She shrugged again. "He can't go on like this, Evans. He's not happy, and he's certainly not healthy. He's not eating, Whine is a thoughtless prick, Hudson is pretty worthless no matter how you cut it, and Dalton is feasting upon his soul. The only reason he left McKinley was because of Karofsky, so if we can get rid of him, we get Kurt back."

He eyed her. "You have a plan."

"Maybe." She raised a brow. "And you still have your hard-on. You've got some serious stamina." She raised a brow. "Want some help with that?"

"Fuck _yes_ ," he hissed, closing his eyes. "You have no _idea_ how much I want that, but I can't. I can't do that with you when I'm in love with Kurt. I can't do that with you because you're worth more than that. It wouldn't be fair, not to any of us."

She said nothing and after a long moment, he cracked open an eye and looked in her direction, disconcerted to see her staring at him through a narrowed gaze.

"I don't know what the shit is happening here. I don't know what this is. I don't even know if I like you as a person. But I'm starting to respect you." She looked away. "Don't fuck that up."

He swallowed heavily. He certainly planned not to give her reason to doubt him.

"The bathroom's over there," she said, pointing vaguely with a finger. "Go take care of yourself, Evans, and then come to bed." She gave him a poisonous smile. "While you're in there, think about me and Kurt taking turns on your cock with whatever orifice does it for you. That should help you out."

Sam groaned plaintively and walked stiffly to the bathroom, her mocking laughter following him.

"And make sure you clean up after yourself!" she called out as he shut the door.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, Sam emerged from the bathroom wearing a wifebeater and a pair of boxer briefs. Santana didn't bother hiding her interest in his body. The boy was hot.

Sam noticed the tattered Titans t-shirt she was wearing as a nightshirt. It looked just the right size to have once belonged to Puck. He didn't comment on it.

"Help me take his shoes off," she told him, indicating Kurt. They each attacked a foot.

"Big feet," Sam noted.

She smirked. "And you know what that means."

He involuntarily licked his chops.

"Look at the way his jeans fit, Evans," she purred. "Can you even imagine how much he's packing? Don't you just want to put it in your mouth? I bet it tastes even better than it looks."

He moaned. "You're killing me here, Lopez."

"And that _ass_."

He whimpered. 

She snorted. "You're a teenage boy. Your recovery time is far above normal. Be thankful for that. Kurt will be." 

"He's so beautiful," he whispered, ghosting his hand over Kurt's hair. 

"He is," she agreed, "but don't ever call him pretty. He hates that." 

He nodded, filing away that Important Piece of News. 

She gracefully slid inside her bed, cuddling up against Kurt, who turned slightly on his side against her. She smiled, pleased. Sam followed, pressing himself up against Kurt's back. He closed his eyes and hummed happily. 

"I like this," he said. 

"I should think so," she dryly replied. "Berry or Schuester?" 

"Huh?" 

She rolled her eyes. "Would you rather fuck Berry or Schuester?" 

His mouth shifted into a moue of disgust. "Well, that just killed the new boner." 

"Answer the question." 

He soured. "Schuester, I guess. His body is banging. The face? Not so much." 

"Oh, thank god," she muttered. "I'm so sick of every girl in that school talking about how fuckable he is. I seriously _do not get it_." 

"How was Finn?" he asked. 

"Terrible," she groaned. "It was over before I could fucking blink. I didn't even get off and he didn't know how to help me. Completely clueless." 

Sam winced and then frowned. "Is Puck really as good as he says?" 

Santana considered the question. "No," she finally said. "Don't get me wrong, he's good. He knows what he's doing and he makes sure you're taken care of, but he's…" She trailed off, not sure how to phrase it. "You watch porn?" 

"Sure," he easily replied. 

"You know Nacho Vidal?" 

His eyes widened and he propped himself up on an elbow to stare at her. "Seriously?" he boggled. "It's _that_ big?" 

She laughed. "Hell no. But Puck fucks like that, like he's putting on a show for an invisible audience. It's all about him, all the time. I remember when I had this threesome with him and Collier, one of the Cheerio guys. It was at some party, out in the pool house. Whatever, there was a mirror on the wall and Puck watched himself the entire time. He's more into himself than he could ever be into someone else." 

He raised a brow. "Puck had a threesome with another guy?" 

She looked up at the ceiling and shrugged. "Sure. Not the first time, either. Last year he had one in the locker room with April Rhodes and Matt Rutherford." 

"The guy I replaced?" 

She nodded. "Rutherford was a seriously fine piece of ass." 

"Is Puck bi?" 

She eyed him. "Would you be interested if he was?" 

"Not really," he said, shrugging. "I mean, it'd be nice to know another bi dude, and he's good to look at, but I don't think I could deal with his drama. He's like a walking soap opera." 

She snorted. "No shit. What about Kurt's drama?" 

"Most of Kurt's drama is created by other people. Sure, Kurt's _dramatic_ , but he doesn't cause a lot of drama. There's a difference." 

She nodded slowly, liking the delineation. "At any rate, it doesn't matter. Puck's totally straight, but he likes threesomes and he likes having another guy involved because it ups his stud rep. He probably likes to believe that guys, even straight ones, want a piece of him. He might even be right. He's not a homophobe, not really, and he's not afraid if balls touch during a double-teaming. Hell, he grabbed Collier's hips for leverage while they were fucking me and spanked his ass more times than was necessary. Puck really has no prejudices when it comes to sex and people having sex. His attitude toward Kurt was all because Kurt made him feel inferior; he still does. That Kurt's gay really had nothing to do with it." 

"Huh," Sam whispered. It wasn't a good excuse for bullying, for inciting terror in another person, but he felt just a smidgen of relief that Puck wasn't as much of a raging asshole as he had first believed. Sure, bullying was always about poor self-esteem on the part of the tormenter, but he was glad that Puck was just a dickhead and not a complete fucking psycho like Karofsky. 

"Now, Rutherford?" She continued. "He's bi, and he was totally into Kurt." 

His fingers curled into a fist. "Wait, what?" 

"Calm down, Mickey Rourke," she snapped, rolling her eyes. "Rutherford now lives in Texas and Kurt doesn't know anything about this. The only reason I know is because Rutherford dated Brittany for a while, and though she can keep a secret, she tells me everything." 

He made note of that for future reference. "Why didn't Matt say anything to Kurt? Why didn't you?" 

"Rutherford didn't say much of anything at all. He talked even less than Chang." 

"Whoa." 

"Exactly. And why the fuck would I out someone? Just so Kurt could be taken to Breadstix? Fuck that. I'm cold, but I'm not heartless. But, I'll admit that if I had known about it sooner, if Rutherford hadn't transferred, I probably would have tried to get them together. At least long enough for some oral action in the choir room that Brittany and I could have conveniently stumbled upon." 

He snorted. "It's pretty pathetic that I'm jealous of a guy I've never met and who no longer lives in this part of the country, huh?" he asked sheepishly. 

"A bit," she conceded, "but as a jealous cunt myself, I can't hate on you for it." 

He grinned; he liked that she knew who she was and didn't apologize for it. You always knew where you stood with her, and that was pretty damn cool. "So…Figgins or Jewfro? 

She blinked. "I've misjudged you. You're evil and I approve." 

* * * * *

In the middle of the night, Sam's eyes flitted open and, for a moment, he forgot where he was. He looked down and saw that Kurt's hand was still in his. Santana's laid atop theirs.

He smiled and fell back asleep.


	4. Dies Frangit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One thing about Kurt is that he's not predictable, so don't be surprised if he doesn't quite act as one might expect.

Santana hadn't slept well, so when she awoke once again, this time at half past five, she decided to give up the ghost altogether.

It was probably for the best anywhore, she thought. Kurt's moisturizing routine was legendary in the glee club, thanks to Finn's incessant whining. She figured his internal alarm clock would cause him to open his eyes momentarily. She knew he would freak and she wanted to be ready.

She shifted slightly and stared at the two boys in her bed. When was the last time she had a boy in her bed and they had done nothing but sleep? She couldn't remember. Perhaps because it had never happened.

Both were sleeping on their sides, Sam huddled protectively around Kurt, his tanned muscled arms enveloping the smaller boy. Sam's head was nestled in the crook of Kurt's neck, lips even plumper with the contentment sleep afforded.

She wondered as to the last time either boy had slept so well.

She had meant what she said last night; it _was_ nice to see Kurt so wanted by someone else. Kurt deserved that, he truly did, and Sam was a good guy.

She despised that they looked so adorable together and resented that her own sleep had been so fitful, but the cuteness with which she was currently confronted caused some of her rancor to ebb.

Sam had all of his Quinn and Finn drama, while Kurt had looked exhausted at the party; she figured he must have been running on fumes. She knew Dalton was far more academically rigorous than McKinley, but Kurt was an exceptional student. He had been there long enough to find his sea legs; that wasn't what worried her.

The more she thought about it, the more she hated Blaine. Sam very well could have been right last night, suggesting that perhaps any feelings Kurt believed Blaine possessed for him were figments of his imagination.

But she just couldn't accept that, not where Blaine's behavior was concerned. The boy didn't seem deliberately cruel, but he was certainly thoughtless, which she believed might have been worse. Like Sam, she found herself mortally offended that Blaine had been so ignorant of how his behavior might have been construed by Kurt, how it would have affected him.

Blaine knew that Kurt had never been in a relationship. Blaine knew what Karofsky had done. Blaine knew how badly Kurt was bullied at McKinley. Well, she paused, Blaine _believed_ he understood Kurt's experience, but that wasn't the same as actual understanding. All bullying was not the same, and sympathy was not empathy.

Still, if Kurt believed Blaine had feelings for him, there were reasonable grounds for that assumption. The endearments – handholding, hugs, soft kisses on the cheek, always initiated by Blaine to her knowledge – were nice, she supposed. Blaine understood just how starved for touch and affection Kurt was, and that he was willing to extend that was kind, if not misleading. But for him to go even further with Rachel must have devastated Kurt, reinforcing his own feelings of worthlessness.

So for Kurt to be told by Blaine that he wasn't sexy, for Blaine to ask Kurt to help him woo some idiotic clerk at The Gap, for Blaine to make out with Rachel last night – whatever good intentions Blaine might have had, it was fairly obvious that he was completely obtuse. How could he _not_ see Kurt's longing looks? And if he did see them and chose to ignore them, that was far more vicious than simply leading Kurt on. How dare he play the role of mentor for Kurt when it was apparent he had no idea how to approach said role? He was flying blind and dragging Kurt along on his crash-and-burn mission.

Unacceptable.

How could Blaine have missed all the weight Kurt had lost? How could he not know how hurtful his offhand remarks and requests could be? How could he have kissed Rachel the way he had, knowing all the drama that surrounded New Directions? Had he done it to be provocative? Had he done it to prove a point – and, if so, to whom? Or had he done it simply because he was absolutely oblivious to anything that wasn't about him?

Santana sighed and rolled onto her back.

She wanted this to work, she truly did, but Kurt was the deciding factor. The pain she had witnessed on his face last night was beyond anything with which she was familiar. Sure, it had just about killed her to see Brittany with Artie, but the sadness was lessening. She wasn't sure what that meant, and wasn't sure she wanted to find out, but she could skip out the door right now and find a relationship with a hot guy if that's what she wanted. Kurt was an entirely different story.

How would he react to this? To Sam?

To her?

They weren't friends. That fact had never been so glaringly obvious until last night. It normally wouldn't have bothered her, but as she had looked around at the people in Rachel's basement, she realized that she and Kurt were more alike than she had ever truly considered: alone.

She desperately wanted a friend. She wanted a friend who would accept her faults – not excuse them or try to explain them away – but one who stand at her side regardless of them. She and Brittany had been best friends before the lines had become muddled, but it was never an equal partnership. She'd had to look out constantly for Brittany and protect her from those who sought to belittle or intimidate her, and that was okay. She had liked fulfilling that role and she didn't regret doing so.

But Kurt would be an entirely different story. She could fulfill that same role for him that she had for Brittany, but she knew he would reciprocate it, whether she wanted him to or not. The very idea scared her. It would require her to lower her shields, to trust in someone more than she ever had before, and she didn't know if she had it in her to let another see her weaknesses. It helped that she knew he would never exploit them, not like she and Quinn had done to each other numerous times over the years.

Kurt would respect her and would demand that same respect in turn. She honestly didn't know if she was capable of providing it. That she might _not_ be able, that she was afraid she simply lacked the basic humanity required to be a good friend, shamed and infuriated her.

She was so tired of being Santana Lopez. She rather thought Kurt Hummel could understand that.

But there was also another fear.

She was so afraid of losing control, of coming to depend on someone else in the ways she had always purposefully avoided. All of her relationships, sexual and otherwise, had been predicated on her being the dominant partner, the one who gave nothing more than that which was absolutely required. If or when it became too much, she bailed. Brittany had been allowed closer than anyone else, but even she had been kept mostly at bay.

It wouldn't be that way with Kurt; he wouldn't allow it. She had seen how he had gotten under the skin of others. Finn had said last night that he loved Kurt, and he did; she knew that, even if their affection was unhealthy. Quinn had a soft spot for him even though they were no longer close. Before he had transferred to Dalton, it had been patently clear that Rachel longed to call him her friend. She had seen the occasional glances Puck shot Kurt's way, ones filled with such regret and sorrow, it was almost stultifying. Hell, even Sylvester wasn't immune.

Kurt had the uncanny ability to look at someone and _know_ them, know their secrets and fears, to be able to precipitate their needs before those needs manifested. It was what also made so incredibly dangerous, though few understood why. His very _character_ encouraged dependence and reliance upon him. If she allowed him to glimpse her, to __see__ her truly, she would be made vulnerable and would always remain such to him.

Sam was naturally submissive. He went along to get along. He was a peacemaker, a negotiator. He had a backbone, but it was only fueled by righteous indignation or the defense of another. He was a beta.

She liked to consider herself an alpha, but she had only assumed that role by intimidating and alienating other people, which was definitely cool but also incredibly lonely. She was the loner wolf.

Kurt was an alpha by nature. That was her opinion, based on hours upon hours of quiet observation. She knew that many would have disagreed with her, but those same people were often the ones oblivious to how manipulative and deceptive Kurt could be, and he was most deceptive about his own thoughts and feelings. He talked a big, bad game, but, at his core, he was a soft touch. Those who paid close enough attention, as she had, as Jones and Hudson had, knew how to work that to their advantage. Still, none of that took away from the fact that Kurt ruled over others in his own way.

Even those instances in which he let others take the lead, he could usually be found somewhere in the background, pulling strings so subtly, most people never even realized those strings existed. Others believed him weak, and maybe he was, in a purely physical sense, but his superior intelligence, combined with a strong sense of cunning and his unique understanding of emotions, usually allowed him to triumph.

Rachel and Finn were the self-appointed nominal leaders of New Directions, but they were merely figureheads. Everyone knew Kurt was the one in charge, far more so than Schuester ever dreamed of being. When Kurt had left, everything had fallen apart as far as she was concerned. There was an irreparable shift in the dynamic.

At first, Schuester had delayed the start of rehearsals, looking at the door and waiting for Kurt to saunter in before remembering that he was gone. Rachel would pitch new numbers, all of which centered around her and, even now, would calmly wait, only to realize that Kurt wasn't there to interject or call her ridiculous. When they talked about costumes, Tina would head over toward Mercedes, only to stare dumbly at the unoccupied seat next to her.

When the inevitable fights would break out, Mercedes would turn to her side, desirous of a cutting rejoinder, and winced when none was forthcoming. Artie would pluck relentlessly at his suspenders because no one was there, or cared enough, to tell him how awful they were. Finn didn't know what to do without Kurt there to correct his posture and breathing, or to help with his dancing, and he resented whenever Rachel attempted to fill that void. Brittany was simply miserable without Kurt's comforting baby hands. When they performed group numbers, there was always a place left open, one which had belonged to Kurt, and no one was willing to step up and close it.

All of them missed him and all of them wanted him back, but not enough to do anything about it. Now the ball was in her court, she had placed it there, and she had to make the decision whether or not she was willing to return the serve.

And she really _wanted_ to do that.

Finn, Puck, Karofsky; they were brute force and little else. Mercedes, Brittany, Rachel and Schue were overly emotional and thus easily manipulated if you knew which buttons to press. Quinn was little more than the good girl playing bad, and her ability to play that role was diminishing, even if she didn't understand that yet. Mike, Tina, and Artie were smart enough to stay the hell out of the way, which ensured they'd survive almost any coup unscathed. Zizes didn't even matter.

But Kurt Hummel was the modern reincarnation of Machiavelli. Once he managed to control completely his own emotions, Kurt would become the global overlord and his enemies were doomed. That would be hot, and she could totally help him with that. So could Sam. Making Kurt stronger would make them stronger in their own right.

If this alliance, or relationship, or whatever the hell it was or might become moved forward, she knew that Kurt's would be the dominant personality.

It scared her than she wasn't more scared of that.

At this point, however, she really didn't see what she had to lose. She had no real friends, Brittany and Puck were happy with other people, the head cheerleading position had been taken away from her, and trying to pretend she was unaffected by it all was debilitating.

What was so wrong with wanting someone to take care of her? What was wrong with needing people, as long as you chose the right ones? Was she trying to talk herself into this idea or out of it?

Fuck.

Sam was hot, no doubt about it. He was a legitimately nice guy. Sure, he had some issues, but who didn't? Maybe it would be a welcome change to share her own with other people rather than trying to fix the issues of everyone else. Maybe it was just her turn.

Maybe allowing Kurt to help them would allow him to help himself. She scooted closer to him.

And…she liked them. Even if she couldn't admit that to them yet, she truly liked them as _people_.

She didn't know why she was so surprised.

Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't fuck with them. It was just what she did.

 

* * *

 

It was almost fifteen minutes later when Kurt's lashes began to flutter.

Santana held her breath and waited. It had been fascinating to watch him sleep. He didn't move. He hadn't changed positions since Sam had settled them. She wondered if that was normal for him, or if having Sam hold him had made the difference. She knew better than to ask.

His eyes snapped open and she was startled by the immediacy of his wakefulness. She tended to stumble about her house in a state of half-dress until her mother poured coffee down her throat, sometimes literally.

Fuck, if Kurt was one of _those_ morning people, she was seriously going to have to rethink this.

"Hey Rainbow," she said softly.

His eyes widened impossibly before he gave an exaggerated blink. She could almost see his mind racing to connect the pieces as to how he had ended up with her.

"It wasn't a dream."

Not a question, but a declarative statement. She appreciated his refusal to linger in denial.

"No."

He gnawed on his bottom lip as his eyes flitted about her room. "You really brought me home with you?"

"I said I would."

"Why?" he softly asked. His tone was merely curious, not judgmental.

"Because I thought you needed a break from being you."

If she surprised him, he didn't let it show. "My dad."

"I called him," she explained. "He knows you're with me, where you are, and my address and phone number. It's okay."

He released a breath she hadn't even realized he was holding. Damn, he was _really_ good.

He raised a brow. "Is Sam behind me?"

Her lips twitched. "He is. He held on  to you all night."

His eyes became suspiciously glassy and it pained her. She wondered if he had ever had anyone do that for him, just hold him in a bid to make him realize that somehow it would be okay, someone other than his father. She wondered if, had he been conscious, he would have let Sam hold him. She doubted it. It made her a little sad, but she understood it.

"He's apparently very well hung," Kurt said nonchalantly, "if his morning wood is any indication."

She snorted, hiding her surprise. Kurt joked about dicks? "Good to know."

"Something happened to him last night, didn't it? You were both trying to take care of me, but something happened. To both of you."

She marveled at his ability to slip into his caretaker role. She had expected exclamations of surprise and indignation. She had expected fury and ungratefulness and embarrassment. There were none of these, only his concern for _them_. Well, that coupled with the fact that he probably was neither willing nor able to deal with the Blank factor.

Jesus, who the hell was this boy? Why had she never bothered to find out? Why was all of this suddenly a lot more terrifying? Was he using her perceived emotional state to manipulate her? Did he actually care for her?

She had never been so unseated in her life, and she was kind of digging it.

She curled a lip. "Finn and Quinn are back together."

Kurt's eyes narrowed minutely. "I gather this happened prior to the party and that Sam was not summarily informed?"

"Correct."

"Bitches," he seethed. "The both of them."

"That's my take on the entirely fucked-up situation."

"And Brittany?" he gently asked.

"She's with Wheels." She ran a tongue over her upper lip. "With Artie," she corrected. "She loves him."

He exhaled slowly, his eyes filled not with pity but sadness. Sadness for _her_. "Oh, honey. I'm sorry, but she really does."

A sob caught in her throat and her mouth fell open, fighting to release it. She had known it but not accepted it until someone else had pointed it out for her. She kind of hated him for that, for destroying a particularly well-cared for delusion.

"I vaguely remember telling you last night that you should tell her you love her," he said. "I stand by that. You don't have to tell you're in love with her, and I'm not presuming that you are, but she needs to hear that you genuinely care for her, Santana. She needs to know that she means something to someone."

"Artie…"

"Artie loves Brittany, but he's in love with Tina. He always will be. I know him, sweetie, and Tina was it for him. He learned from his mistakes with her and he won't repeat them with Brittany, but if Tina broke up with Mike right now, Artie would be on her doorstep five minutes later."

"And that's not wrong?" she asked bitterly.

"I don't know," he admitted, his honesty searing her. She was grateful he didn't spout useless platitudes or consolation. "It's not ideal, but he treats Brittany well. He'll never cheat on her. He doesn't talk about her behind her back, and he defends her to other people." He gave her that half-smile she found so utterly seductive. "And Brittany is smarter than most people give her credit for being, including you. She knows Artie loves Tina, and if Artie is using her, Brittany is using him right back to prove to herself that she's lovable. Just as Finn used me."

"I told your father everything Finn said to you," she said, almost belligerently, wanting to unseat him.

He gave her a bland look. "It was coming sooner or later. Both Dad and Carole feel the tension in the house whenever I'm home from Dalton. Maybe this way is better because it won't cause another verbal explosion from Finn or myself."

She stared at him, pissed off. Where was the condemnation? Where was the indignation? Goddamn it!

"What?"

He smiled. "You wanted to provoke me. I'm not saying I'm not angry with you for blabbing my business, but I understand the context of why you did it. It's over and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I'll deal with it. I always do." He paused. "I know you're awake, Sam."

Sam sighed and mumbled incoherently into Kurt's neck.

"I'm uncomfortable with your proximity, Sam," Kurt said frankly. "Please let me go."

Sam instantly released him. "Sorry," he whispered.

"I don't want you to be sorry," Kurt replied. "I appreciate very much what both of you did for me last night."

"You're blushing," Santana noted. "Why are you embarrassed? It's not just because of Sam's boner."

Kurt made a dismissive noise, though it sounded somewhat strangled. "It's an autonomic reaction. It happens to most boys."

"But not to you."

His blush receded and he paled, his full lips settling into a grim line like a slash across his face. There was a story there, she realized, something beyond Karofsky, and she wanted to know what it was. But now wasn't the time.

"Kurt," Sam softly said, "you get that what Finn said to you is total bullshit, right? He talked to me too, you know, tried to bully me out of the duet. I didn't listen and told him where to go. I wanted to sing with you. That never changed."

"Sam…"

"No, Kurt. I get that you thought that you were being selfless, trying to spare me any humiliation, trying to protect me from what you go through, but what you don't understand is that you really hurt my feelings."

Kurt blinked slowly and rolled over onto his other side. "What?"

"Other than Finn, you were the only person who even tried to get to know me, to welcome me to the hellhole that I now know this town is." His voice shook slightly. "That meant a lot to me. And then you just took it all away and offered some lame-ass excuse that you were setting me free." His eyes darkened. "What if I didn't want that? Why wasn't I even consulted? Why was I just so easy for you to throw away?"

Santana blinked. _Whoa_.

"Oh, Sam," Kurt whispered.

Sam hopped to his feet. "I have to go to the bathroom." He dashed across the room, obviously trying to slow his stride in an attempt to maintain the appearance of normalcy. He failed.

Kurt shifted onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

"You know that not all of that was about you," Santana said.

"Yes, but most of it was," Kurt whispered harshly. "It never even occurred to me that I might have hurt him. I thought I was being noble, but instead I was just careless with someone else's feelings."

"Like Blaine?"

He slammed his mouth shut with an audible clack. "I don't want to talk about him."

"Fair enough." She didn't particularly want to discuss Blaine either, because she knew once she started, she'd never stop. "Still, the point is valid. Quinn really fucked him over."

He snorted. "Don't forget about Finn."

"As much as it would thrill me to forget him entirely, I can't. And last night I made sure to tell him what I thought about him and his attitude, about how he's basically become the Puck of junior year. You know, right after I slapped him across the face."

"Did you really?" he laughed, before shaking his head. "Who am I kidding? Of course you did."

"I decked Berry, too."

"Well, I always knew you were awesome."

She released a satisfied sigh. "Still, it's nice to be validated."

He nodded, eyes crinkled with amusement. "I understand."

She hesitated for a moment and then linked her pinky with his. "You understand a lot of things, don't you? About all of us."

"Don't make me out to be more than I am, Santana," he cautioned, restless eyes scanning everything but her. "I'm not a paragon. I've made my share of mistakes and I'll probably make many more. Still, I watch people. I listen when they speak, especially when they're not speaking directly to me but in my vicinity. It's often the only avenue of social interaction I'm afforded."

She raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes. "People don't like me. They believe that I keep their secrets because I'm intimidated or because I have too many of my own. Or they wonder who I would possibly tell; after all, my social calendar is so anemic it requires iron supplements. Everyone knows Mercedes and I are not what we once were. I've kept things from her. A lot of things." He eyed her. "And I don't regret that."

He sighed and finger-combed his hair, which had maddeningly held its shape since the night prior. "Or it's because they think I'm one of the girls, or that I'm just weak." He raised a brow. "Come on, I've known you for twelve years, Santana. Until last night, when have the two of us ever held a conversation about anything of import?"

He held up a hand to ward off her interruption. "I'm not blaming or criticizing you, I'm just making an observation. We travel in different circles and that's okay. I never expected anything from you. You never actively sought to hurt me. You could have, I know that, but you didn't. That's why I knew last night on an instinctual level that you were honestly trying to help me, even if I was a complete basket case."

She told herself she was holding her tongue in a bid to draw him out further, but the truth was that she had nothing to say.

"I've watched the people in glee club," he continued. "I know what makes them tick. Yes, I understand them, but not because I'm empathic or even necessarily a good person. It's just that we're all fairly obvious."

She propped herself up on an elbow. "How do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Take Rachel for example. Do you truly believe all of the snide comments about her wardrobe and her screeching and her insatiable desire for control don't affect her? Of course they do; in fact, they only entrench her further in those habits. She's not confident, she's just stubborn.

"She's terrified about what will happen to her if she makes out of Lima. Here she's a star, and not just because she insists that she is, but because she's legitimately one of the most talented people in New Directions. But that's here, that's not New York or Los Angeles. She may have a one in a million voice in Ohio, but those who have similar voices and want to pursue their dreams of stardom all end up congregating in the same cities. She'll become just another little fish in a very large pond. She's scared to death."

He smirked. "I know what the others think, that I'm just the male version of Rachel with perhaps slightly less testosterone."

She snickered.

"But I'm not. I'm just the only one paying attention."

She sobered. That was…profound.

"Dr. Lyddie is your mother?"

She nodded, untroubled by the non-sequitur. "She is."

"Did she tell you how I know her?"

"Only that she was one of your mother's doctors and that she thought you were a very strong child, but nothing else."

He nodded and lapsed into a silence in which he appeared completely comfortable, which unnerved her. "Why me, Santana?" he eventually asked. "Why reach out to me, and why now?"

She was quiet for a long moment, knowing if she offered anything but the unvarnished truth, he would see through her. She found that both creepy and awesome, though she didn't know why.

"Because I was wrong not to do it before," she said roughly, "and I don't like being wrong."

He considered her answer, the veracity of it, and was satisfied. "And Sam?"

"He has his own reasons. He should be the one to tell them to you."

He nodded. "I respect that. I respect you. I probably should have told you that before."

She snorted. "Why would you? I don't know why you would respect me at all. I'm just a bitch."

"You're a lot more than that," he countered, "but what I respect is that you acknowledge and don't apologize for who you are. That's very rare in people our age, I've found. It's very taxing being around people whose personalities shift with the tides. I've seriously debated committing Finn in order to determine conclusively whether or not he has multiple personalities."

She giggled. She couldn't remember the last time she had honestly _giggled_.

"It's the same with Quinn and Artie and Puck." He paused. "And Mercedes." He heard her breath hitch and he smiled. "I'm not blind to her, Santana, I never have been. I just learned a while ago to pick and choose my battles. She has so little, really, that I don't begrudge her her pettiness. In the end, Mercedes has always come through for me. Sometimes it takes her a while to come around, but I can be patient where she's concerned. I know she's worth it." He bit his lip. "Or I did."

"I've never seen you like this," she murmured.

"Like what?"

"Quiet. Calm. Deliberate. I always knew you were smart, and I had suspected that you were wise, but I never realized just how…accepting you really are."

"Well," he sighed, "that's not always been my choice. So many decisions were made for me without my consent or approval. Patience is indeed a virtue, but it's a learned one, and acceptance comes once you realize the only behavior you can alter is your own. That's been a very difficult lesson for me to learn, but I finally heeded it."

"Who are you, Kurt?" she whispered.

He closed his eyes and the tears spilled over. "I'm sad. I'm lonely. I hurt. And I'm…I'm tired. I'm just _tired_ , Santana." His breath hitched. "Aren't you?"

"Exhausted," she agreed.

"And Sam?"

"He's like us."

"He is, isn't he?" Kurt marveled. "I believe I owe him an apology. I'm not used to someone treating me as…a person."

She winced.

"No apology needed," Sam said, leaning against the door jamb of the bathroom, "but you still owe me a duet."

Kurt's lips quirked upward. "So I do."


	5. Quae Nudabat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt thinks about his life and its direction, or lack thereof. A very introspective chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point in the story, it's important to mention again the initial warnings posted with this story. There is offensive hate speech contain within, though used to make a point. Also, a return to character bashing (particularly Finn, Mercedes, Blaine, and Karofsky). If you continue to read, proceed knowing that you've been adequately warned. This was written before Blaine was retconned to be a year younger than Kurt (WTF was that about?).
> 
> Also, please bear in mind that while I'm writing this story, the viewpoints expressed by the characters, including those about canonical plots and other characters, are not necessarily my own. There are many points of view in this story, and I approach them from what the characters believe about their own experiences, at least in this universe. While written in third-person, there is no omniscient narrator. 
> 
> Finally, this is fiction.

Kurt quickly made his excuses and escaped into Santana's bathroom so that he might have a very quiet and private breakdown. He certainly didn't want to lose it in front of his two new best friends.

In the sanctuary of his own mind, he was unsure as to whether or not that last statement was sarcastic.

He slid down the back of the door, resting his head upon his knees. He paused to inhale the delicious fragrance of lavender and vanilla permeating the admittedly luxurious bathroom. Granted, it wasn't as spectacular as his own but, really, what could be?

He sighed.

What was he doing? Not only in Santana's house, but with his life? For the past two years, he had done nothing but make poor choices. And now he could do nothing but sit there as every humiliating moment came flooding back to him. Was this his subconscious's way of forcing him to take stock? Stupid psychology.

The whole debacle with Finn had been completely embarrassing and utterly mortifying. Its remnants were long-lasting and appeared to be permanent. They had never moved past it, despite the excuses they had made to their friends, their parents, and even to each other. Finn would never truly trust him and constantly suspected his motives, even when it came to something as banal as him doing a load of laundry. Finn was absolutely convinced that he was secretly some kind of sinister sexual deviant and considered it his duty to protect the virtue of all boys in their immediate vicinity.

He frowned. Was he being fair to Finn?

Well, in his mind, yes.

He honestly didn't know if Finn was homophobic, because Finn was fearful of anything he didn't understand or was outside the realm of his own experience. Once, he had taken pride in helping Finn to understand all of the nuances he failed to notice, both subtle and blatant, but now he simply found Finn tiring. He understood why Quinn had never bothered to explain things to Finn, but he was curious as to why she had decided to renew their romantic relationship.

He had long believed that, for Rachel, part of Finn's appeal was his obtuseness; it made her feel superior that he was so needy, never understanding that it wasn't necessarily _her_ that he needed. Any port in the storm and all. Not that Finn didn't love her, only that what he most loved about her was how much she loved him. Honestly, he thought they brought out the worst in one another, but each was too stubborn to call an end to their collective misery. Rachel deserved better.

His mind flashed on her kiss with Blaine. Perhaps not.

But was he any better than Finn? He had been hopelessly clingy with Blaine, so much so that he didn't understand why Blaine had put up with him for as long as he had. Of course, Blaine had friend-zoned him almost from the beginning, so it wasn't as though Blaine had been saddled with the same baggage.

Well, that was certainly sobering. Of course, it didn't stop him from wanting to shove Blaine's curly, overly-gelled head through a plate-glass window.

He was of two minds about the entire Blaine-and-Rachel situation: on the one hand, he desperately wanted to play the part of the martyr, the wronged party whose heart had been ruthlessly trampled upon; on the other, Blaine owed him nothing. They had never been in a romantic relationship, despite his own longing and desire.

Still, a part of him couldn't help but resent Blaine. He felt tricked, as though whatever hope he had been hanging on to, even if false, had been snatched away from him like a carrot from a donkey.

The bottom line was that, though it was true Blaine owed him nothing, the other boy had certainly been playing fast and loose with his heart. The question was whether he had known he was doing so.

It would be easy to dismiss Blaine's obliviousness as good acting, perhaps in a bid to let him down gently, but he knew Blaine wasn't that good an actor. Besides, having known firsthand via Finn how clueless a teenage boy could be, it stood to reason that Blaine was simply ignorant of the feelings of one Kurt Hummel. He didn't know how much more obvious he could have been, other than coming right out and tackling Blaine to the floor and instigating a lip assault.

Ew. Shades of Karofsky.

That was a kettle of fish he'd just as soon leave unopened.

Still, _some_ part of Blaine must have recognized that his feelings were more than friendly.

He simply hadn't been unable to keep the heartbreak from his face after that nonsense with the Gap Attack. And for Blaine then to make out with Rachel? He had told Blaine everything about Rachel, the good and the mostly bad. If Blaine had to make out with a girl, why did it have to be _her_? Blaine _had_ to have known how badly that would devastate him. Right?

Maybe Blaine wasn't malicious, but he certainly was thoughtless.

He had presented himself has some kind of older and wiser mentor, but the truth was that they were the same age and Blaine was no more wiser than any of their contemporaries. Kurt wanted to sue him for false advertising, but he was the one who had bought into the fantasy, wasn't he? He had wanted to believe it, in Blaine, to surrender all of his problems to the irresistible lure of someone who was more experienced.

But _was_ Blaine more experienced? Blaine had told him that he too had transferred to Dalton to escape bullying, but what exactly was the nature of that bullying? Kurt had simply assumed that it was worse than his own, but why? It wasn't necessarily true. Sure, Blaine had been out longer, but what did that mean? Everyone Kurt had ever met had known he was gay from the moment of said first meeting. He had only been out _officially_ for about a year, though only to his friends, but it was nothing more than confirmation of what everyone and their mother had long known to be true.

And now, with the gift of hindsight, he realized that he had been so desperate, and still was to an extent, to deny what Karofsky and McKinley had done to him, he had been more than willing to look upon Blaine as a savior, one who had triumphed over much more scathing adversity. He had built up Blaine so much in his mind, put him on such a pedestal, that it was only a matter of time before the façade crumbled.

However, that didn't mean that Blaine wasn't just as guilty of perpetuating the myth.

Kurt honestly didn't know which was worse: Blaine knowing how he felt about him and not returning those feelings, or knowing and not caring.

And then there were his own actions. _He_ was the one who had maintained contact with Blaine after their initial meeting. _He_ was the one who told only Blaine about that horrid mess with Karofsky. _He_ was the one who had blown off his friends in favor of Blaine. _He_ was the one who had unloaded all of his problems onto Blaine, who then went about offering advice which backfired more often than not. Still, he _had_ taken the advice, even when it went against his own instincts.

Kurt startled. He _had_ done that, hadn't he? Somewhere along the line he had relinquished control of his life to another because he was simply too tired to maintain that control himself.

Well, that was just pathetic.

He had always prided himself on his independence, on his ability to solve his own problems, but he had been so overwhelmed that he had checked out and placed the responsibility onto Blaine, who had demonstrated rather consistently that he was ill-equipped to handle the challenge.

But Blaine had taken up the mantle willingly, had convinced him that he knew best.

Really, what did he even know about Blaine? Nothing of great import. Blaine didn't talk about his family or what his life had encompassed prior to Dalton. Meanwhile, Kurt himself had spilled all of his secrets to someone who, on the surface, was incredibly understanding, but who in fact knew very little. That nonsense with Karofsky was a prime example.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, both with himself and with Blaine.

Why hadn't he told his father about that kiss?

He had told himself at the time that it was to protect his father, protect his fragile health, but Burt Hummel was no weakling and had recovered completely from the heart attack.

No, he hadn't told his father because he didn't want to appear any weaker in his father's eyes than he already had, which had been foolish. It was one thing to be independent; it was something altogether different to be stupid.

And it _had_ been stupid. _He_ was stupid.

If Karofsky had done the same thing to Brittany or Quinn, he would have been the first to encourage them to go to their parents – hell, he would have led the charge – so why had he demanded less for himself?

He closed his eyes. He was denying the truth _again_.

He hadn't gone to his father because he had honestly believed his father wouldn't have cared.

Well, that wasn't exactly true, but his father definitely wouldn't have understood. The entire sordid ordeal would only have served to infantilize him even further in his father's eyes. He didn't want his dad rushing in to protect him.

Kurt snorted.

No, he had let _Blaine_ do that for him, and it had been a colossal failure.

And now he was forced to rethink every decision he had made that had included Blaine.

He should have trusted in his father, in Miss Sylvester. Hell, even Miss Pillsbury.

But not Mister Schuester or Mercedes.

He flinched. Well, that was certainly telling.

He took a deep breath and slowly released it through his nose. He repeated the practice for several more moments, until he felt himself calm down.

Right. It was time to face some hard truths.

He hauled himself to his feet and stripped out of his clothes, which felt stiff and gross. He turned on Santana's shower and let the water heat up as he removed his essentials from his bag and lined them up on the counter.

One, he was incredibly unhappy with his life.

He tolerated Dalton only slightly better than McKinley. The Dalton curriculum was enthralling, encouraging him to push himself to his limits academically, challenging him in ways the Allen County public school system never had. He had transferred late in the semester and was still at the top of his class, surpassing Blaine and the Warblers in their age group. He didn't feel appreciation from his teachers, but there was a level of respect between he and they which had never existed at McKinley.

Still, that could be corrected, or at least ameliorated, were he to return to McKinley. He could take supplemental classes at the community college, or online at OSU. He knew his father would pay for them. If he went back, he could coast through his classes with no problem.

He stepped into the shower and let the water cascade over him for a few moments, loosening tired muscles and rehydrating his skin.

He had even fewer friends at Dalton than he had at McKinley, and he wondered if he was socially autistic. He didn't seem to fit well anywhere.

Of course, he had allowed Blaine to isolate him at Dalton. He also realized he had allowed Mercedes to do the same at McKinley. For some reason, he chose as best friends that type of personality which sought to outshine him at every opportunity, while at the same time keeping him as close as possible to reinforce his own sense of worthlessness. He was fairly certain that neither Blaine nor Mercedes intended to come across that way, and it was more his fault than theirs because he had allowed it, but why were his closest relationships so unequal?

He bit his lip as he robotically reached up and massaged his imported organic shampoo into his hair.

Issue two: friends.

He would never be able to look at Blaine in the same way after last night. It wasn't a question of forgiveness, because it wasn't his responsibility or place to forgive Blaine anything, but the person he had believed Blaine to be had crashed and burned. Now he realized he really didn't know anything about Blaine and wasn't sure he wanted to.

Wes and David were acquaintances by association and nothing else. They accepted him, maybe even liked him slightly, but they weren't his friends.

He and Mercedes had been growing apart for months, before Blaine, and even before Quinn. He loved her like a sister, he would do anything for her, but it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore the fact that they had very little in common.

They liked to gossip about their peers, specifically Rachel, and about celebrities and fashion, but most of that was to disguise the fact that they had nothing else to say to each other. They had only started talking because they spent so much time together in Glee and were united in their distaste for one Rachel Berry. Artie and Tina had been his friends for much longer, and he realized now how he had pretty much shunted them aside in favor of Mercedes, a fact which shamed him.

Mercedes wasn't really a better friend to him than they were. He had allowed himself to get caught up in the newness of his relationship with her, abandoning people who had been at his side since elementary school. Then he had abandoned Mercedes when Blaine came along, which was doubly embarrassing.

He sighed as he came to unwelcome conclusion that he wasn't a very good friend.

Amends would have to be made.

He had strong feelings for both Mercedes and Blaine, but he wasn't sure he liked them very much. Both were possessive and controlling, making demands on his time and causing him to question every decision he made, to the point where he had found himself unable to make any decision without wondering how they would react to it. When he disagreed with them, they would punish him by freezing him out for a while, presumably to give him time to come to his senses, which basically meant acknowledging that they were right and he was wrong. He was ashamed that he had given in to their demands and machinations more often than not, fearful of being left alone.

They were no wiser than him. They couldn't manage his life any better than he could; in fact, most of his troubles resulted from ignoring his instincts and following their edicts. Further, they were hopeless on their own. How many nights had he sacrificed to listen to them wail and whine about their various travails, begging him for advice, for direction, only then to ignore his words and dismiss them out of hand?

Didn't they realize how insulting that was? Didn't they care?

He heaved a sigh and leaned his head against the shower door.

What had he truly gotten out of those friendships?

As far as Mercedes was concerned, he was there for her to dominate. Her only other friends were Tina and Artie, who had originally been his friends. His only purpose seemed to be to validate her. She knew how he felt about Blaine, that she disapproved, and as out of it as he was last night, he had still been cognizant enough to realize that she had watched Blaine and Rachel go at it and hadn't been interested enough to intervene or even to give him a consoling hug. He never would have treated her that way.

And as for Blaine? Well, he kind of felt like Blaine's science fair project. He had been letting Blaine pull his strings for so long that he somewhat felt at loose ends now that those strings had been cut. And they _had_ been cut.

He had to accept that he had never had any romantic future with Blaine. Once again he had pursued a boy who had no interest in him. He supposed he could take solace in the fact that he hadn't been so pathetically obvious as he had with Finn, and at least Blaine was gay, but the situation had been just as hopeless.

He rinsed the shampoo from his hair and applied the conditioner.

Had he really left McKinley for Dalton because of his fear for his own safety, or was it because he wanted to be with Blaine? Had he joined the Warblers because he wanted to sing, or was it to be with Blaine?

The worst thing about his quasi relationship with Blaine was that it was forcing him to reconsider _every_ decision he had made these past months, and he didn't like the direction in which his thoughts were leading him.

He began lathering up with his body wash.

Karofsky _had_ been a real threat. He didn't know why Blaine hadn't understood that. That kiss had been disgusting and taken completely against his will and, for some reason, he was just expected to get over it like it had been nothing. In fact, Blaine had infuriatingly insisted that he should feel _sorry_ for Karofsky.

Why? Because Karofsky was gay? Because he was in the closet and fearful of coming out?

How was that his problem? Why was it his responsibility? Because they were both gay, he somehow _owed_ Karofsky something?

"Fuck that," he viciously hissed, startled yet pleased by his use of invective.

He hadn't made Karofsky gay. He hadn't forced him into the closet, nor had he forced him to try and step out of it.

The kiss was his fault because he was out? Because of the way he dressed? Because of his pride in his sexuality and the absence of shame? Since when was it acceptable to blame the victim?

And he _had_ been Karofsky's victim, as noxious as that thought was. Karofsky had been bullying him for _years_ , since elementary school. Then the bullying had turned physical, violently so. And then that kiss had revealed that all of that bullying, all of that bravado and machismo, was really about Karofsky's own self-loathing.

But that _didn't_ make it okay.

Karofsky had been physically assaulting him on an almost daily basis for three years. Everyone had known and had done nothing to stop it. And when that awful kiss happened, he had realized that not only had he been physically assaulted but sexually harassed.

Blaine hadn't understood the very _real_ fear he had felt in that moment, because he had known if Karofsky had wanted more and tried to take it, there was little he could have done to stop him. That was terrifying and humbling. He had been used to being attacked verbally and physically by groups of people, but the thought of being raped had never entered his mind.

And now he thought it about all the time, about the physical power others, other _boys_ , had over him. How they could just take what they wanted from him. How was he supposed to trust another boy? He couldn't even posit letting another boy touch him in any intimate way, and he supposed it must have been apparent, because even Blaine made sure he could see any sign of affection coming from a mile away, on the chance he might want to call a halt to it.

He might not have been raped, thank Prada, but he still felt violated. He still felt as though he would always be at the mercy of another.

Karofsky hadn't just stolen his first kiss, but his sense of self and his ability to trust others. How was he supposed to get over _that_?

That disgusting moment when Karofsky's lips had smothered his own, he had been certain of the fact that he was about to be raped. That, mercifully, hadn't happened, but that it hadn't had done little to dispel the _fear_. And then the stalking and the death threats had unfurled.

No. He'd had no choice but to leave McKinley, because, other than Sylvester, they definitely hadn't been interested in protecting him.

If he had been a girl, no one would have stood for Karofsky's actions, but because he was a boy, because he was _gay_ , he somehow bore culpability.

That was why he hadn't told Figgins, because he knew he would be blamed.

That was why he hadn't told his father, because he knew his father would've wondered if he had encouraged Karofsky in some way; after all, he had a history of interest in jocks, namely Finn and Sam. He hadn't told Finn because he knew he would've gotten the same reaction.

After his father had sided with Finn and told him to stay away from Sam, Kurt had finally accepted that while his father loved him unconditionally, he didn't particularly like the person he was.

He didn't know why he hadn't told Mercedes. The fact that he hadn't was, in itself, revealing.

He rinsed the soap from his body and the conditioner from his hair, and then turned the water off. He stepped out of the shower, engulfing himself in a warm terrycloth towel, and looked at himself in the mirror.

It was time to make some hard decisions.

He failed to see how his friendships with Blaine or Mercedes were in any way beneficial to him. Those relationships had been born out of either a presumed shared sexual identity or proximity. Blaine was only interested in him as a construct, not a person, and Mercedes used him to feel better about herself.

Granted, as of late, he had not been a very good friend to Mercedes. He was left to wonder if that was because they had never truly been friends, or if his resentment of her treatment of him had built up to a point where he could no longer tolerate her. Whatever the case, the relationships were unhealthy.

They had to go.

Finn was now his brother, but that didn't mean they had to be friends. He was the only one who had been investing any time and energy in their relationship and didn't see the point in continuing to do so when Finn clearly wasn't interested. He was tired of being made to feel as though he owed penance just because he once had an unrequited crush.

What was even more absurd was Finn believing he was entitled to have some say in with whom he was allowed to interact.

If he remained at Dalton, he only had to put up with Finn on the weekends. If he returned to McKinley, they only had to suffer each other's presence for another year until they both went off to college. Kurt was sure they could fake it well enough to appease their parents until they could part ways. Well, he could do it; he wasn't sure about Finn. He didn't much care, either.

He would apologize to Artie and Tina for being a fair-weather friend. If they forgave him, he would be elated; if they didn't, he would accept it, as he had no one other than himself to blame.

He would thank Wes and David for allowing him into the Warblers, even if they hadn't really wanted him to join, and would then resign.

He would never be friends with Rachel and that was okay. He wasn't required to get along with everyone, and he simply couldn't stomach the idea of pretending to like her just to get along with the others. He didn't hate her, nor would he go out of his way to antagonize her; he would simply ignore her.

He didn't like Puck and never would. Check.

He didn't know Lauren and didn't feel the need to anything about that. Maybe they would become friends one day and maybe they wouldn't.

He adored Brittany and would crush anyone who made her frown.

He didn't have much occasion to speak with Mike, but they got on well enough in group settings. He hadn't forgotten that both Mike and Matt had once persecuted him alongside Puck and Finn, but that had stopped as soon as they had joined Glee. They had never apologized for it and he hadn't expected them to, but he had sensed some remorse on their part and that was good enough. Mike treated Tina well and that was really all that mattered.

As for Quinn, he was somewhat saddened that she had renewed her relationship with Finn. They didn't have anything in common and, most of the time, it seemed as though she could barely tolerate him.

He believed he had gotten to know Quinn somewhat during that time she had lived with Mercedes, and had been shocked to discover that he actually liked her. They had similar senses of humor and agreed on many political and social issues. Despite her deep religious convictions, Quinn had no prejudices with regard to his sexuality and his right to live his life.

She had pretty much dropped Mercedes once the school year had started, which, at the time, he had found mroe than a little cruel. Now he wondered if Quinn simply caught on to Mercedes much more quickly than he ever had.

What he had told Santana earlier was true: he knew about the games Mercedes played and, most of the time, he was fine to let her do so. But just because she didn't have a lot going on for herself didn't mean that she had to find her happiness at his expense.

He was going to miss her, or at least the person he had believed her to be. Perhaps the person he knew she could become.

He didn't often speak with Quinn since he had transferred to Dalton, but they texted on occasion. If she was now going to be a frequent guest in his home due to her relationship with Finn, he could keep the peace. He'd also keep up his guard.

That just left Sam and Santana.

They frightened him.

What did they want from him? Why would they even bother with him?

He could still feel Sam's arms around him. That terrified him.

He completed his exfoliating and moisturizing regimens and quickly dressed. He was somewhat disturbed that he had finished his morning toilette in under half an hour. Either that meant such a feat was truly possible and he had been wasting precious time for years, or he had missed several key steps in his process and his skin would later pay the price.

He took a deep breath, threw open the door, and charged out into Santana's bedroom.

 

* * *

 

Sam and Santana abruptly looked up from her laptop as Kurt made his appearance, their eyes widening as they regarded the look of steely determination on his face. Sam looked as though he was about to mess his pants while Santana thought some shit was about to go down and she was all for it.

"I have several things to say," Kurt began, "and the two of you will do me the courtesy of shutting up and allowing me to say them."

Santana raised a brow, while Sam's forehead furrowed in confusion.

"But we're not talking," he said.

"Irrelevant," Kurt snapped. "I'm about to do something I've never done before: be completely honest about what I think."

Sam's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "You mean, in all the time I've known you, you've been holding _back_?"

"Yes."

Sam shook his head. "Fuck," he whispered.

Santana smirked and patiently waited for Kurt to continue.

"First, I want to thank both of you for what you did for me last night." He held up his hand to stave off Sam's oncoming interruption; he knew Santana wouldn't bother speaking until she had something to say. "Don't dismiss it as though it were nothing. It was everything."

A bashful Sam reluctantly nodded and Kurt took another deep breath.

"I've reached the conclusion that I'm not a nice person and I haven't been a very good friend," he continued. "For a long time, I've convinced myself that I'm some martyr who's covered his hurt and pain with a superficial veneer of bitchery and false arrogance. That's not true. I _am_ a bitch, and I kind of like it. But I want to be even better."

Santana __definitely__ liked where this was going.

"I don't like many people," he continued. "In fact, I can count that number on one hand and still have room to flip someone off. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise me that people don't like me, but somehow it always does. I purposefully cultivated a persona of cold indifference and aloofness to keep people at bay, and then had the gall to resent them when it worked."

He sighed. "I told myself that I wasn't liked because I was gay, that the people who treated me so horribly would one day know better, regret what they had done, and I would have the last laugh." He shook his head sadly. "I didn't want them to grow so that they would be better people, but so I could lord my superiority over them. I…was a selfish asshole."

Sam's mouth fell open and Santana flinched.

"I don't want to be that person anymore," Kurt said, "but nor do I want to be some doormat who allows people to walk all over him because he would rather have so-called friends than be alone."

Santana cautiously nodded.

Kurt began pacing. "I don't like this. I don't like self-introspection and personal analysis. It's much easier and more comforting to believe that the problem is with everyone else, but it's time I owned my responsibility in how I'm treated. I've taken a lot of crap off people and given some of my own back, but now I need to level the playing field, and that starts by facing the very simple truth that I'm a bitch."

Sam cocked his head.

"I don't mean _bitch_ in the good way," Kurt clarified. "I mean that I'm petty and spiteful and selfish. I mean that I've used people for my own ends, or even just because it was amusing. I mean that I'm a gossip who's spread as many rumors as have been spread about me. I mean that I'm dishonest about my feelings and ambitions, and I lie to people when it's convenient or advantageous. I've hurt people deliberately because I could or because I was thoughtless."

He halted his movements and closed his eyes. "Enough people have told me that I'm not a victim, and I'm finally starting to believe that. However, with that acceptance comes the realization that I have played that role when it suited, either to make myself feel better or appear more sympathetic in the eyes of others." He shook his head. "That's utterly pitiful, and it's going to change."

"How?" Santana baldly asked.

"I'm going to become a _good_ bitch," he promptly answered, his eyes snapping open. "I'm going to speak my mind about things that matter, things which affect my friends and myself. I'm going to defend my friends, but not placate them when I know they're wrong. I will not speak behind others' backs about that which I don't have the guts to say to their faces. I'm not going to worry over what people in whom I have no interest think about me, because, ultimately, they and their small opinions don't matter. I'm not going to be a person who has to build themselves up by tearing others down. I'm not going to live my life in fear of what other people may think or say about me, and I'm not going to waste my time trying to hurt people who are simply beneath me."

Sam and Santana stared at him, then at each other, and then back at him.

"Is that it?" Sam ventured. Frankly, he thought Kurt was being way too hard on himself, but what did he know? Kurt was obviously way more complex than he had ever considered, but he was looking forward to figuring out the puzzle.

"No. I owe you an apology, Sam, because you were right: I _did_ throw you away, but not for the reasons you think. And I'm going to tell you those reasons, but first I want to put them in context. What I told you last night was the absolute truth: when I met you, it was friendship I wanted. I had thought that perhaps you might be gay, but that had nothing to do with you.

"I wonder that about every guy I meet, whether or not they might be like me, because it's very difficult to feel so alone all of the time. That's probably why I latched onto Blaine so quickly and allowed myself to believe things that just weren't true. My only other experience with a gay guy is with Karofsky, and we all know what happened there."

Sam's eyes darkened and Santana released a stream of Spanish which soon had Kurt smirking.

"Did you kiss Brittany with that mouth?" he asked her.

"Yep," she nodded, "and she loved it."

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "The part I left out, Sam, is that I was very attracted to you. I still am. To be frank, you're the hottest guy I've ever met in my life." He gestured toward the door. "Feel free to run away now."

But Sam just sat there and continued to stare at him.

Kurt was confused and anxious. "Why are you still here?" he demanded.

"Why would I leave?" asked a flummoxed Sam.

Kurt's eyes bulged. "I just told you I think you're hot."

"So?"

"What!" Kurt shook his head. "You're not getting this."

"I get it just fine, Kurt. You think I'm hot. Why is that a _bad_ thing?" He grinned. "Thanks, by the way."

Kurt stared at him in horror and then launched into a brief but detailed explication of the debacle with Finn, about how he had acted, about how humiliated he had been and continued to be by those actions, about how strained and tense his relationship with Finn now was.

"And?" Sam prompted.

Kurt stared at him again, with even more incredulity. "I'm a stalker, Sam!" he finally exploded. "You shouldn't want to be around someone like me."

"Because Finn doesn't?"

"Yes!"

Sam gave him a crooked smile. "You're forgetting something pretty crucial, Kurt. I'm not Finn."

Kurt blinked owlishly. "What?"

Sam shook his head. "Wow. Hudson really did a number on you." He sighed. "Okay, I've heard your explanation, but it's pretty obvious that you need some context of your own."

"What?" Kurt repeated.

"You liked Finn. He knew that you liked him, and you liking him made him uncomfortable. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Did Finn ever tell you that?"

"Tell me…what?" Kurt slowly asked.

"That you made him uncomfortable," Sam clarified. "Did he ever tell you to back off? Did he ever tell you to stop hanging around him or that nothing would ever happen between you? Did he even flatout say that he wasn't gay?"

"No?" Kurt said in a small voice, his confusion apparent.

"Weren't you the one he went to with most of his problems about Quinn and Rachel?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you tutor him almost all of last year in every subject?" Santana interjected.

Kurt nodded. "Yes."

"Did you ever touch him inappropriately or proposition him sexually?" Sam asked.

"No!" a scandalized Kurt bellowed.

"So what did you do that was so wrong?"

"I knew he wasn't gay and chased after him anyway," Kurt said.

"You already stated that he never told you explicitly that he wasn't gay," Santana snapped. "He knew you were gay and was more than content to use you as a guidance counselor and therapist. He knew that you liked him and he did nothing to discourage your interest. How is any of that your fault?"

Sam nodded. "The way I see it, you liked him, were a good friend to him, helped him with his problems, and were always available whenever he needed you. You stared at him a lot, sang some sad songs, and pretty much knew your crush was hopeless. For that, you deserved to be subjected to hate speech in your own home?"

"I had it coming," Kurt said softly, all of the assuredness he had discovered in the shower abandoning him. He abhorred his own vacillation.

"Your dad didn't think so," Santana argued.

"He didn't know everything about the situation."

"That doesn't matter, Kurt," Sam said, disbelieving that such a smart guy could be so susceptible to a dimwit like Finn. "Okay, I'm about to use some really bad language, but the point needs to be made."

Santana nodded. "I think I know where you're going. Do it."

"Kurt," Sam began, "for the sake of argument, let's say Santana acted toward me like you think you did toward Finn." He held up his hands. "I know, she never would, but this is Pretend Time, okay?"

Kurt narrowed his eyes but nodded.

"Now, I've never told her that I'm not interested. I've never told her that she's pissing me off. Then, one day, I'm over at her house and she's tutoring me in Spanish. I can't take the way she looks at me anymore, it all comes to a head, and I blow up at her and call her a wetback in her own home." He raised a brow. "Is that in way acceptable?"

"Of course not!" Kurt exploded, flushing with anger as his hands curl into fists. He took a deep breath, released it, and shook his head ruefully. "It's not the same thing, Sam."

"Why?" Santana demanded. "Because now we're talking about sexual orientation? Then how about this? Let's pretend Mercedes is a lesbian. She's been in love with Quinn for a year, and when Quinn has nowhere else to go, Mercedes sees her big chance and invites Quinn to live with her. Quinn accepts, knowing how Mercedes feels about her. They've never spoken about it, it's the big elephant in the room, but they both know it's there. _Everyone_ knows it's there.

"Quinn's discomfort grows. She's freaking out because even though she considers Mercedes a good friend, maybe her best friend at that time, she knows how Mercedes really feels about her. But it's live with Mercedes or be homeless. It's not as though Mercedes can _make_ her gay. It's not as though Mercedes could force her to _do_ anything. She's just scared because of something she doesn't understand, something she's never _tried_ to understand because it doesn't pertain to her. She hopes that if she ignores it, it will go away. Still, she knows it will eventually have to be addressed, but she's too scared to talk about it. So all of the pressure builds up and she flips out and calls Mercedes a nigger."

Kurt gasped loudly, his disgust at the word evident.

"It's _exactly_ the same thing, Kurt," Sam quietly insisted, forcing the other boy to struggle to hear him and thus pay attention to his words. "Finn attacked your core identity, something over which you have no control, something which you didn't choose for yourself. Being gay doesn't define you, but it's a huge part of who you are. You didn't choose to be gay any more than Santana chose to be Hispanic or Mercedes chose to be black. And feel free to switch out those racial and ethnic slurs with others of your own choosing. Imagine if Finn had called Mike a chink, or Tina a gook. Imagine if he had called Rachel or Puck a kike.

"Would you still be defending him?" he asked. "Would you still put some of the blame onto Mercedes or Santana or Tina? Don't you see how _wrong_ that is? How wrong Finn was?" He shook his head. "Let's bottom line this. Can you control to whom you are attracted? No. Can you control how you react to that attraction? Yes. Were you a little bit ridiculous with Finn? Probably. Did he ever tell you to stop? No. Did he have control over how he reacted to you? Yes. Did he exercise it? _No_."

"You want to be a good bitch, right?" Santana asked. "Like you said, to do that, you need to own your shit. Well, from what I've seen, you're owning yours. But I haven't the foggiest fucking _clue_ as to why you're trying to own his."

"He apologized," Kurt whispered.

"How? By wearing a shower curtain?" Santana scoffed. "Brittany told me all about that. He was going to protect you, right? He was going to help make it better for you, like you were his own personal Trevor Project. Well, then, where the fuck was he when Karofsky was attacking you almost every single fucking day? Finn saw you getting shoved into lockers. He saw the words scrawled on your locker. He knew what Karofsky was doing to you, though not the extent."

"We all knew," Sam muttered, "and we did nothing."

Santana grunted.

"It's not your job to do anything," Kurt said kindly, "and if I recall correctly, Sam, you did more than your share."

A blush crept up Sam's neck.

Santana opened her mouth, but Kurt cut her off.

"No, we weren't friends, Santana, but we were also never enemies. Not really. You never used hate speech against me. You never slushied me. You never threw me in a dumpster or nailed my lawn furniture to my roof or threw pee balloons at me. You never called my house or my father's shop and made obscene remarks or threatened my life. You never crossed the street to avoid me. You never spray painted hideous remarks on my property. You never toilet-papered my house. You were never afraid to touch me when we were paired as dance partners."

She sat on her hands to repress her need to strangle something. "I never did anything to stop those things, either, even though I knew about them."

"But I never expected you to. We both knew what would have happened to you if you had. I never blamed you, Santana."

She grimaced, his absolution only compounding her guilt. She wasn't sure if she was more pissed at herself or at him. Since when did she experience guilt?

Sure, she knew what it was, one of those buzzwords thrown around that didn't really mean anything, like _fat-free_ or _restraining order_.

But she had never _known_ guilt; or at least she had been able to surpress it, like she had her minions and most of her emotions. That was the problem with people like Kurt Hummel: they made you _feel_ things.

Of course, she had already admitted to both herself and to Kurt that she had grown fairly tired of feeling nothing but a pleasant numbness at best, or emptiness at worst, but was she ready for this?

She thought she had been, but then Kurt had stormed into the room and made a big speech which shared many points relevant to her own self-reflections. She didn't know if she wanted to make that journey with him, to make herself into an allegedly better person. She thought she was fine just the way she was; though, granted, some tweaks were definitely in order.

But wasn't that all Kurt was talking about, making some tweaks to his character? Refining some traits and refocusing his energies? There was nothing wrong with that, she supposed. And she couldn't expect to get everything right all in one go. She was sure that Kurt wouldn't expect that either, not from her nor from himself, but maybe it would go more smoothly if they worked together? How could she suggest that to him without sounding like a completely needy tool?

"We need you back here, Rainbow. Everything's just fallen apart since you left."

Yep, she was a tool.

He stilled and gazed at some point above her head, his fear rising to the fore. "I can't."

"We've got your back, Kurt," Sam insisted, "I swear. We can handle Karofsky."

Kurt smiled and shook his head. "You can't, Sam. He threatened to kill me. He looked into my eyes and threatened to _kill_ me, and I understood that he not only wanted to, but that he would. You can't protect me all the time. You can walk me to classes and you can walk me to my car, but you have no control over anything once we leave school. He knows where I live. He knows where I work. He will find me if he wants to. He's already been spotted at Dalton."

"What!" Sam and Santana screamed.

"He can't get in," Kurt continued. "The grounds are secured. There are alarms, video surveillance, guards, and dogs. His picture is posted in every security outpost. I'm safe there, far more than I would be here. And, yes, sometimes I feel like a prisoner, but I much prefer that over being dead. For all I know, despite the events of last night, he's after Blaine in addition to me."

"Sweet Jesus," Sam whispered. "I had no idea it was this bad."

Kurt shrugged. "It is what it is. For whatever reason, Karofsky's decided that I'm to blame for all of the problems in his life. I've done everything I can reasonably do to protect myself. A record is being kept of every time he shows up at Dalton, every time he drives past my house, every time he calls or texts or emails me. The next step is a restraining order, and if he ignores that, I'll have him charged with stalking."

He sighed. "I know New Directions thinks I ran away, that I just gave up, but it wasn't only myself that I was protecting. It's not your job to take care of me. I can't ask you to do that, but more importantly, I don't _want_ you to do that. I'm not helpless. What you don't seem to realize is that the moment you act as a group in defense of me, you all become targets, far more so than you ever were before. He would figure out that you know about him. Your families would become targets. He knows Beth is with Shelby. He knows Puck has a little sister. I'm sure he knows he about Stacy and Stevie, Sam. Do you really believe that Mister Schuester and Miss Pillsbury are safe just because they're teachers? There's a _reason_ most of the faculty ignores his behavior."

"I'll fucking end him," Santana hissed.

Kurt shook his head. "He knows all of you. He knows where you live. He knows your schedules. He's already attacked Finn and Sam for coming to my defense. He physically assaulted Tina by shoving her into a locker because she was wearing a costume to which he took offense. He's attacked Artie just for existing. Would he go after Puck or you, Santana, on his own? Probably not. But would he go after Rachel or Mercedes or Brittany if he managed to get them alone? You tell me."

"Don't you think it's possible you're just a little bit paranoid?" Santana asked, trying not to shake. If that asshole went anywhere near Brittany, his life would be forfeit.

"Oh, quite probably," Kurt chirped, laughing bitterly, "but better paranoid than raped and/or murdered."

"You really think he would go that far?" she questioned.

Kurt shrugged. "I honestly don't know; that's why he terrifies me. I have no idea what he's capable of, but I know that I'm in his crosshairs. So far, I seem to be the only one. I plan on keeping it that way."

He scratched the back of his neck. "I've often thought about returning to McKinley, but I know what would happen if I did. I'm not particularly fond of Dalton. I haven't really enjoyed my time there. They have, however, kept me safe. Yes, I pay for that privilege, but at least it's something. We all know Figgins understands what goes on in his school, and not just to me. He's simply uninterested in doing anything to rectify it. He hides behind budgets and the school board, and maybe they do hamper him, but we all know he could do more if he could be bothered."

"Figgins is a dickhead," Santana agreed, nodding slightly.

"Karofsky really is insane," Sam whispered.

Kurt looked down at the floor. "I would never forgive myself if he hurt you because of me."

Santana walked over to him and cupped his chin in his hand, her eyes all but spitting sparks. "You listen to me, Kurt Hummel. _You_ are not responsible for the choices that asshole makes. You have done nothing to him. He is nothing more than a scared, pathetic, _gutless_ little boy who's been allowed to do whatever he wants for far too long. I appreciate that you want to protect us but, by your own logic, that's no more your job than it is ours to protect you. Friends stick up for their friends."

Sam nodded resolutely.

"Santana, you're _really_ not getting this. It's not just bullying anymore. It's not dumpster tosses or slushies. He threatened to _kill_ me." He snorted. "And why not? He's never punished for his behavior. He gets off scot-free every time. He was expelled and it was overturned. Why? Because it was my word against his. Don't you understand he _plans_ things that way? He has people to tell him when I'm alonem that there are no witnesses, where he can find me, and then he does whatever he wants because he knows he won't be punished. And do you know why?"

She nodded stiffly. "Because you're gay."

He nodded in kind. "Because I'm gay. Because there are people in this town, in that _school_ , on its _staff_ , who know what he does to me and they don't care, because they truly believe I deserve it for being what I am and not being ashamed of it. And do you think that's limited to Karofsky? Figgins truly believed that Tina was a vampire. He told me more than once that I needed to tone down how I dress, how I act, who I am. If Karofsky magically disappeared, do you think the hatred and the fear and the ignorance would go with him? Of course not.

"There will always be another bully. Perhaps they won't be as extreme, but I'll still be a target. I won the football team their single victory last year. Do you think I was thanked, that I was congratulated? The bullying was worse than ever before because I did something they could never do, because I had the audacity to show them up. If I was still at McKinley and managed to get a boyfriend, can you even imagine what he would be made to endure? And that's just as far as other students go. Do you believe we'd ever be allowed to attend a dance together? That we'd even be allowed to hold hands in the hall?"

Sam looked down at his hands as he felt a huge yellow streak slide up his back. Just as quickly, he forced it to recede. He was in this now, and he was not about to give up on them just because it would be difficult. He had known that going in. He refused to be a pussy.

Kurt shook his head. "Rachel's been through hell because of how the world views her fathers, and while her pain is her own and I know she has great sympathy for me, she's not gay. She doesn't know what it is to be gay. She knows how her fathers and I are treated, she knows it's wrong and she steps up to try and stop it, and she knows how she feels when someone calls one of her fathers a fag." Tears slipped down his face. "But she doesn't know what it feels like to be called that herself. She doesn't know what it does to you, to be reminded constantly, on a daily basis, that the majority of the world thinks there's something wrong with you. That you're evil or soulless or a pedophile waiting to strike."

"I'm so sorry," whispered a devastated Sam.

"I don't want you to be sorry," Kurt said. "It's not your fault. I know how Rachel is treated because her dads are gay. I hear the whispers about her, Noah, Tina, and Artie because they're Jewish. I hear the racial slurs against Mercedes and Mike and Tina, and Matt, when he was here, the ones that will never be said to their faces because it's illegal. I hear the ethnic slurs against Santana. I hear the insults against Artie for being in a wheelchair, and against Brittany because she's so innocent. I saw what Finn and Quinn went through during her pregnancy.

"Believe me, guys, I know that we're not the problem, that it's them, the ones out there who are so terrified of anyone who's different that they feel the need to lash out. And the points of your Pretend Time weren't lost on me. Perhaps I've been easier on Finn than he deserves, but after a lifetime of conditioning in which I've been compelled to believe that I'm wrong and everyone else is right, it's difficult to make myself recognize that I'm not responsible for everything. It's a constant struggle, and I suspect it always will be.

"I know that my pain isn't special. I know that I'm not the only one who's been victimized. I remember when we were eleven and someone burned a cross in Rachel's yard. Every time I'm at the mall with Mercedes and we separate, I see the sales staff follow her around, positive she's going to steal something. I gave Matt a ride once; his car had broken down close to the school. We pulled up to a traffic light and the white people in the nearby cars rolled up their windows and locked their doors. I've seen idiots affect horribly fake Asian accents and hurl slurs at Tina and Mike. Brittany's told me how she's been in restaurants with Santana where people ask her to take their order, because of course she must be the help; she couldn't possibly be there to _dine_."

Shame burned on Santana's face.

"Don't you __dare__ ," Kurt hissed. "Don't you _dare_ allow yourself to take on the weight of __their__ stupidity." He sighed. "Despite the fact that Dalton has a zero-tolerance policy, I've seen the anger on some of the boys' faces if Blaine holds my hand. Just because they can't act on their hate doesn't mean they don't still feel it. And no matter how much I hate it, no matter how much I want to stop it, no matter how badly I want to excuse their ignorance, I've also realized that it's never going to change. And you know what? That's okay. I can deal with it. But I can't deal with Karofsky."

Sam, who didn't know when he had risen to his feet, abruptly sat back down on Santana's bed with a defeated look on his face.

"What if you didn't have to?" asked a voice.

The three turned toward the doorway, where a defiant Lydia Lopez stood staring at them, her husband's arm wrapped around her shoulders.


	6. Lacrimisque Cadentibus

"Mom?" asked Santana, annoyed at the interruption and the fact that her parents had obviously been spying on a private conversation.

"What if you didn't have to deal with this Karofsky person?" Lydia repeated to Kurt.

He blinked. "I'm unsure that's an option," he said slowly. "So far, nothing has deterred him."

"And that's where I come in," Robert said. "Kurt, you don't seem to be aware that everything that young man has done to you is, in fact, illegal. It would be relatively easy to compel him to stay away from you. It's just a matter of paperwork."

Kurt paused to consider, truly consider, the man's words. "How so?"

Robert nodded swiftly. "He has physically and sexually harassed you. He has stalked you, both at McKinley and outside of it. He sexually assaulted you when he forced that kiss upon you."

Kurt paled and sputtered at the idea he had been sexually assaulted. "It was just a kiss," he whispered, ducking his head.

Robert raised a brow. "Was it? Did it feel as though it were only a kiss? Did you welcome it? Did you enjoy it?"

Kurt shook his head sadly, shuddering. "No."

"Kurt, honey," Lydia began, "he took away your choice. Now, I understand that many would not consider his actions to be assault, but you know that's not true. I've seen that boy; I know who he is. He's much taller and considerably heavier than you. You've admitted that you didn't welcome the kiss, that you were, in fact, frightened by it _and_ of him. You were alone, trapped, and terrified."

She shook her head. "You're not responsible for his actions. You don't owe him anything because he's so tortured. He doesn't have the right to put his hands on you because he's frustrated and isolated. It's sad that he doesn't feel able to be himself, but that's in no way your fault." She raised a brow. "What if he had done this to Santana? Would you be arguing that she deserved it? That it wasn't any big deal? Why are you demanding less for yourself?"

Kurt slowly exhaled and peeked at Sam and Santana, who nodded desperately in a bid for him to accept Lydia's words as true.

"And it's more than just the kiss, Kurt," Robert said. "He threatened to kill you. Death threats are illegal and should be taken seriously. The boy is obviously unstable. I sincerely doubt you were the first upon whom he's fixated, or that you'll be the last. Or he could turn his rage even further inward and harm himself."

He held up a hand. "In no way am I suggesting you are responsible for his wellbeing, but you appear to be the only one who has the full measure of this boy. You may be in the best position to do something about this behavior and get him some help, but only if that's what _you_ want to do."

Kurt bit his lip and sat gingerly on the edge of Santana's bed. "Hypothetically, how would I do this?"

Robert suppressed a sigh of relief, grateful that Kurt was at least willing to consider the possibility. The more he had heard about this Karofsky person, the more enraged he had become. It certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility that there was a heterosexual version of the boy roaming the school, believing he was entitled to take what he wanted, and if such a person ever fixated on his daughter, well.

He shook his head to clear it. "Before we delve further into this, in order to plan effectively, I need to know your best-case scenario. What do you want out of this?"

"I just want him to leave me alone," Kurt said quietly. "I want to feel safe again." He blinked and then scoffed. "Not that I've ever really felt _safe_ , but I would like to be able to leave my home or my school and not feel I'm going to be killed and left in a field somewhere."

Sam shivered as Santana mumbled unsavory epithets in Spanish.

Robert winced, but nodded. "Do you wish to remain at Dalton?" He watched passively as Kurt's eyes immediately darted toward Sam and Santana. "No, Kurt. They can't make this decision for you, and you shouldn't allow them to do so. If they're truly your friends, they'll support you."

He felt no guilt for potentially maligning his own daughter. He knew how Santana operated and that she was very manipulative. He wouldn't allow her to manipulate Kurt, not with something this grave.

"We are his friends!" Santana barked. She turned to Kurt. "Listen, Rainbow, the old man is right. If you want to stay at Hogwarts, I'm onboard. Even if Karofsky is taken out of the picture, there's not a lot of love waiting for you back at McKinley."

Sam nodded. "She's right, Kurt. That school has some serious problems, and they're not going to go away just because Karofsky has been leashed. You need to do what's right for you. If the right thing is Dalton, Santana and I have your back. Our friendship isn't contingent upon where you go to school."

Kurt and Santana stared at him.

Sam flushed. "I can know big words!"

Santana giggled and tickled his ribs, as Kurt shyly laid his head on Sam's shoulder, causing the other boy to blush more deeply, a happy smile on his face.

Robert was pleased the other kids had come across, and was particularly impressed with his daughter. He knew how jealous and possessive Santana could be; if she was actually putting Kurt's welfare ahead of what she thought was best for herself, that was a huge feat. He definitely wanted to encourage their friendship.

"Dalton is one of the premiere preparatory academies in the Midwest, Kurt," he continued. "The fact that you were not only accepted, but accepted as a mid-semester transfer student, suggests they truly wanted you to join their ranks because you make them look good."

An embarrassed Kurt squirmed.

"Well, of course he does," Santana said. "He's in advanced everything, led the Cheerios to a Nationals victory, helped New Directions win Sectionals, he's got a job, speaks a few languages, and did better than me on the PSATs."

Sam stared at Kurt, who, if possible, was blushing more than he himself was.

"How do you know my PSAT score?" asked a suspicious Kurt.

She shrugged. "Sylvester. You set the bar pretty damn high, and she let the Cheerios know it."

He rolled his eyes. "Great."

Robert cleared his throat. "What was your score, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Two hundred thirty-one," Santana promptly replied in lieu of Kurt.

Sam's eyes bugged out. "You know the maximum you can get is two-forty, right?"

Kurt buried his face in Sam's shoulder.

"So you're also a National Merit Scholar," Robert surmised. He shook his head. "I'm very surprised Principal Figgins didn't try to keep you," he said. "A loss of such a score is a real blow to the district's average."

Kurt gave a diffident shrug. "I didn't give him much of a choice," he admitted. "I didn't tell him until after the transfer had been accepted, but he didn't say anything. I think he was relieved to see me go."

"What an asshole," Santana murmured.

Lydia found she didn't have the heart to scold her daughter's language.

Robert nodded to himself. "I doubt you'll find Dalton as willing to relinquish you, Kurt. As a private institution, they receive no government funding and thus depend upon students like you to solidify their reputation. Are you happy there?"

Kurt fidgeted. "Not really. At least, not socially." He blushed and looked down at his hands, now in his lap. "I don't have many friends," he said quietly. His brow furrowed. "Of course, I haven't been actively trying to make friends, either." He bit his lip and sighed, shaking his head. "I've been so wrapped up in Blaine, I've pretty much ignored everyone else." He looked embarrassed and slightly ashamed.

"But the school itself?" Lydia pressed.

Kurt frowned and seriously considered the question. "It's a beautiful campus," he allowed. "There are many more clubs and athletic options than McKinley offers." He sagged. "And, if I'm being honest, I enjoy the classes much more than I did the ones here. I feel...challenged in a way I never did at McKinley. It's not that the curriculum is more difficult as much as it is more involved. Their facilities are far superior and the faculty more educated."

He slowly raised his head and looked at Sam, and then Santana, both of whom nodded.

"I want to stay at Dalton," Kurt said softly. "Not just because I feel safer there, but because I don't want to be thought of someone who runs away whenever they encounter problems, which is what I did before." He nodded to himself. "I want to go to a good college. Dalton will help me with that far more than McKinley ever could. Also, transferring schools twice in my junior year doesn't look good on my applications." He shrugged helplessly. "Let's face it: me leaving Dalton for McKinley would be viewed as a step down by many universities."

"I don't like it," Santana said mulishly, "I really don't like it, but I agree. Another year at Dalton with the grades you get, and you can pretty much write your own ticket."

"And just because you're staying there doesn't mean that Santana and I won't be in your life," Sam was quick to add, desperate to establish that they actually _had_ a role in Kurt's life. "You come home for weekends, and we could always drive to visit you."

Santana nodded.

Kurt's face warmed at the thought. For whatever reason, Sam and Santana had become very important to him since last night, and he didn't want to lose them now.

"Not to be indelicate, Kurt," Robert interjected, "but will money be an issue for you at Dalton? I so, Lydia and I would be more than willing..."

Kurt inhaled sharply, as if stung. "Thank you, Mister Lopez. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your offer, but money is not a problem."

"Are you sure, Kurt?" Santana demanded. "I know you received a scholarship."

Kurt nodded. "I did, but it was based on merit, not finances. I have several trust funds that are more than enough to pay for Dalton, college, and professional school."

"I thought your dad couldn't take Mrs. Hud - Mrs. Hummel - on a honeymoon because of your tuition," whispered a confused Sam.

Kurt waved him away. "That's true, but it wasn't because we don't have money. You have to remember that they got married not long after his heart attack, and our insurance is a PPO, so we had large coinsurance bills to pay. It was a matter of timing and a lack of liquid assets."

He shrugged. "Also, Dad is very stubborn about wanting to pay for my education himself. He doesn't want me using my money to pay for what he deems his responsibility." A soft smile appeared on his face. "Which is very honorable of him, actually." He looked at Sam shyly. "That's something you have in common. I guess the adage is true; girls and gay boys are attracted to those who share traits with their fathers."

Sam blushed furiously, but couldn't deny that he was more than pleased by the comparison. Kurt had all but admitted that he was attracted to him! Sure, Kurt had said so before, but, at the time, it was as though he had some ridiculous point to prove, trying to provoke a reaction from Sam. Now, however, Kurt was acknowledging that he actually liked him.

Santana thought their little interaction was very cute, and therefore needed to be halted immediately before she slipped into a diabetic coma.

"What about Karofsky?" she barked.

"A restraining order would be simple to obtain," Robert said. "I think with a little... convincing... Kurt wouldn't even have to make a court appearance."

"But it would be a matter of public record," Kurt surmised.

Robert pursed his lips. "It very well could be. David Karofsky is eighteen. Even though you're still a minor and the system does its best to conceal the identities of minor..." he trailed off.

"Victims?" Kurt softly supplied.

"Well," Robert hesitated, "yes, though I don't believe that word is appropriate here, I can't guarantee your anonymity. I doubt we could get a gag order, and there's nothing to stop Karofsky from telling all and sundry that you swore out a restraining order against him." He cocked his head. "I can't really imagine why he would do so, however."

He sighed. "The important thing to remember, Kurt, is there's no reason for shame. Laws are put into place to protect people from violent individuals. You've done nothing wrong."

"He's right," Sam said.

Santana nodded, content for Hot Lips to take the reins on this one. If she pushed, Kurt might just push back, even if only to be contrary. She understood that a large part of his reticence and embarrassment was not from the discussion, but from the fact that she was part of it. He didn't want to appear weak in front of her, and she respected that. Her reaction, had she been in the same position, would have been similar.

"There's no need to make a decision right now, Kurt," Robert added. "Take some time and think about it. Just let me know."

"Thank you," Kurt mumbled.

Lydia cleared her throat. "Your father and stepmother should be here in a few hours, Kurt. Santana gave Robert your number and he called to set up a meeting."

Kurt swallowed heavily. "Does he know why he's coming?"

"No," Robert answered, "and he was very...annoyed...that I wasn't more forthcoming."

Kurt snorted. "I'm sure."

"You need to talk to him, Rainbow," Santana said. "Let him know what's going on in your life. He's your dad. Let him help you."

Kurt bit his lip and looked away.

Santana glared at her parents, who took the hint and left the room, offering banal pleasantries and the promise of breakfast.

"The Paternal One was right, Rainbow," Santana said quietly. "There's no shame in asking for help."

Kurt stiffened. "I'm...not used to doing that."

"Because you thought there was no one to ask?" Sam whispered.

Kurt said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes.

"Well, now there is," Santana proclaimed.

Again, Kurt looked away and a concerned Sam glanced at Santana. They both nodded.

Kurt was attempting to distance himself from them, mortified by what he conceived was weakness. Admittedly, Sam and Santana didn't truly understand this. It wasn't simply a matter of pride, but of Kurt truly believing that no one, not even his own father, cared enough about him to protect him. In the end, it didn't matter whether or not that was true, only that Kurt _believed_ it to be.

How could they convince him they actually did care? He wouldn't accept it just because they said it.

Santana repressed a snarl of frustration. This was going to take a lot of effort on her part. She had realized it last night, of course, but now she was confronted with the reality and it was bothersome. She wanted Kurt to trust her, but didn't know from where she would summon the patience this was going to require.

Sam stared at Kurt, not understanding how someone so beautiful, so smart, and so kind, could be so very lonely. He knew that most of it was because of how their peers, how their society, treated someone like Kurt, someone who was not only openly gay, but couldn't have passed for straight even if he'd tried.

Sam thought about that and wondered if Kurt's voice were deeper or his fashion choices more pedestrian, if people would have dismissed his sexuality rather than antagonizing him because of it. The thought that they might have depressed him.

Of course, Kurt was also partly responsible, because he tended to push people away from him. Sam didn't know the deal with Kurt's dad, but he knew Kurt was fiercely independent and didn't want to appear vulnerable to anyone. It wasn't a big leap to believe Mr. Hummel was a part of that group Kurt wanted to impress.

And impressing others was something to which Kurt fell prey, no matter how much he denied it. Sure, there was some very real truth to the idea that Kurt was mostly uncaring about how the world at large viewed him, but there was a select few about whom he _did_ care, whose opinions matter to him, and he usually went out of his way to dazzle them. Whether it was with the highest notes or the highest grades or the most expensive outfit, Kurt was more than a little desperate for people to acknowledge him as something other than Gay Kid.

Sam wondered if Kurt thought of _himself_ as something other than Gay Kid, or if he had allowed the narrow minds of a tiny homogenous town to strip him of everything but what made him stand out the most.

Suddenly Kurt looked so small to him, a tiny and fragile thing. He knew it wasn't true, that Kurt was larger than life, more than his body could contain, but glimpsing him in these unguarded moments during the last several hours had been humbling. That such a force of personality, a mind of such precocity, could be dimmed because of the words and actions of people who were ultimately irrelevant...it hurt him.

And if it hurt him, he couldn't imagine what it did to Kurt.

"Can I hug you?" he blurted.

Kurt abruptly swung his head around to stare at Sam, shock plain on his face, though he said nothing.

Sam was afraid to let Kurt think twice about it, so he gently wrapped his arms around the other boy and carefully pulled Kurt against him.

When was the last time someone had hugged Kurt, Sam wondered. Kurt wasn't a physically demonstrative person from what he had seen and heard, and Kurt felt stiff and tense in his arms, as though waiting to escape, or perhaps to be struck.

Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember seeing Kurt hug anyone before. He had seen Kurt _being_ hugged, usually by Brittany or Mercedes, and once by Blaine, but Kurt had barely reciprocated, as though the thought of it pained him or he was unsure what to do. Kurt would smile and nod and joke and laugh, and it was only now, in hindsight, that Sam realized how much of it had been forced.

It made him sad. In response, he hugged Kurt more tightly.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered. "I promise I'll never hurt you."

He knew Kurt didn't believe him, but one day he would. Sam would make sure of that.

Kurt said nothing, his chin resting on Sam's shoulder.

Santana stared at him, as he stared at a spot on the wall just to her left. His eyes were vacant, though red and filled with tears which she knew he wouldn't allow to fall. There was a trace of bewilderment in those eyes, though she could see he was trying to repress it, most likely for her benefit, even though he hadn't acknowledged he knew she was staring at him.

It was horrifying for her to realize that Kurt had no idea why on earth Sam was hugging him. She watched as Kurt raised a hand and tentatively patted Sam's shoulder, as though he felt it was _Sam_ who needed to be comforted.

She was furious when she realized she was shedding the tears that Kurt Hummel couldn't.


End file.
